The Magical Power of the Other People

by Frank M Wanderer

”Tell me, what you think about me, what is your opinion about me?” we have asked other people this question a number of times. We were, however, not interested in the opinion of just anyone; we only wanted to know the opionion of others who have been close to us: our family members, teachers and friends.

All through our life, we have collected these opinions, we have been staring at the mirror. In the view of what we see in the mirror, we make efforts to find an answer to the most important question of our life: Who am I?

What we have gathered from the opinions received from others, we forged an image of ourselves, who we are and what our mission in life is. We have gradually identified with the image, we believed that the image is really us; we have pinned it up on the wall of our room, and proudly show it to any coming our way: look, that is me.

On the other hand, the image in the mirror has also caused us a lot of worry, since there is always a doubt in us: does that image really meet the expectations of others, do we appear good, decent, religious enough in the eyes of others?

As a consequence, we spend our whole life polishing and improving the image in order to make it look better and better for others. We tend to believe that the best strategy in this process is copying, imitating others. This is a strategy that we use from our babyhood onward, that is how we learn our native language, and that is how we acquire the elements of our culture. Later, when we are older, we continue copying others, since if we follow the ways of those who lead a decent and good life, we cannot be wrong.

Another characteristic feature of our image in the mirror is that it is contradictory by nature. We receive almost as many opinions as many friends and acquaintances we have. Some may consider as clever, whereas others do not find that the most important feature of ours. It generates a permanent state of uncertainty in connection with the image, that is, in connection with ourselves.

This uncertainty in connection with ourselves shall serve as a basis for our desire to convince other people that the image in the mirror is true, and we really are the way other people see us. If our identification wirth the image in the mirror, generated from the opinions of others, is strong, it keeps us in a virtually hypnotic state, and we life our whole life under the spell of that image.

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