It’s not the main thing to consider in any situation, but your reputation should matter to you if you want to get along with people.
When you think of anyone, unless you know them very well, you are thinking of their reputation rather than who they actually are.
It just saves time.
You can’t know the heart of everyone you encounter, and people love to talk about each other, so a reputation builds up over time from all that chit chat.
You can’t control the growth of your reputation, it’s more like a weed than a cultivated plant, but you can try to turn your best side toward the light and hope for the best.
Ask anyone who has set fire to their reputation by publishing pictures of their toenail fungus or embarrassing a person with a ginormous twitter following and they will probably tell you that they regret messing up their public face.
Fairly or not, when your reputation is stained, you are instantly more vulnerable to greater sorrows than before. Once you have stabbed your roommate with a spoon, even though there were no charges or visible scars, other roommates will be quick to accuse you of felonious spoon usage. That’s just natural tribulation momentum.
Repairing your reputation is much, much harder than keeping it sorted out in the first place.
With the inter-webs firmly in mind, I think it’s best for you to work on your reputation from the inside out. It’s very tempting to you young things to primp and pose and posture and pretend, but just… don’t do that.
Don’t be so fascinated with appearing to be anything, work on actually being the person you want to be, and the appearance takes care of itself.
Be genuine as much as you dare. Be that feisty weed!!
Even if it all goes awry and you end up with the reputation of a reckless spoon combatant, you will be the person you want to be.
Then you can consider giving up on caring for your reputation.
Love,
yermom
