The following quote from a professional (who wants to remain anonymous) I interviewed illustrates how most people I've talked to deal with their parents' or other significant others' values and evaluations (both embracing and modifying or rejecting them) while figuring out their own.
What I think about when I think about evaluation, what first comes to my mind, is grades. I grew up thinking about “how do people evaluate me and value the products I produce?” And I think about it very personally. This may be more personal than you want or than you could share or write about. But I can remember my mother saying to me, “Never let it be said of you, as Alma had to say of his son Corianton going after the harlot Isabel, ‘because of your actions they would not believe my words.’” My grandfather was [in the public eye] at the time and she would say, “Never let it be said of you that because of your actions they would not believe grandfather’s words.”
She never intended this, but it felt to me like I lived in a glass house, that people evaluated me and valued me or devalued me, but even more important, my grandfather, by what I did. And there was kind of a false perfectionism that I struggled with. And I find my progress in life is dealing with getting out of that box, that prison, that I put myself in. My mother never intended that. She was just trying to teach me obedience and wanting me to try to do the right thing, to be a good boy.
And I was thinking, “Everybody’s looking; and if I’m late, I better have a good excuse.” Well, or make something up, you know? Or, [I’d think] “I’m trying really hard” so it was hard for me to admit that I had things to learn or to make comments in class because I might look dumb; and I’m not supposed to look dumb.
So, as I think about that kind of evaluation from a personal perspective, while growing up, I’ve had to develop an internal gyroscope, something I work out with my Heavenly Father. I need to ask what is good to do and how do I know and base it on something that is more eternal, more personal, more in a relationship with Heavenly Father, and with those who represent Him more than on the opinions of others.
For me it is first what’s worth doing? How do I know? Am I trying to just please people? It’s a question I continue to ask myself when I’m teaching and wondering about teacher evaluations. Is this only about evaluation or is this about some other higher purpose? What I’m trying to do and to be in my interaction with those students? That’s an ongoing issue for me.
I think I’ve developed some skills for understanding how people react to me, and being sensitive... in leadership or administrative positions. In part that comes from a sort of hypersensitivity [in] paying attention to how they feel. So on the one hand their evaluation is still important to me. I can feel it and I’ve developed some skills around listening that feel in part like spiritual gifts that are about trying to read [or understand] where somebody’s heart is. How do they see the world? Not just how I do. What are they thinking?
.... [I try to] see what people see, hear, and what they’re feeling. So when I step back from it, looking back on my life I think, “That wasn’t all bad that I learned to pay attention to what other people were thinking and feeling.” But it wreaked havoc for me for lots of years in terms of how am I doing and how do I know and how can I innovate? If I’m only worried about how people think, how do I contribute something and figure out when it’s ok to take a step or two away from the crowd and be a counter puncher or say, “No here’s something of value that we’re all missing.” So evaluation is a loaded word for me, can you tell? It probably is for a lot of other people.
What I think about when I think about evaluation, what first comes to my mind, is grades. I grew up thinking about “how do people evaluate me and value the products I produce?” And I think about it very personally. This may be more personal than you want or than you could share or write about. But I can remember my mother saying to me, “Never let it be said of you, as Alma had to say of his son Corianton going after the harlot Isabel, ‘because of your actions they would not believe my words.’” My grandfather was [in the public eye] at the time and she would say, “Never let it be said of you that because of your actions they would not believe grandfather’s words.”
She never intended this, but it felt to me like I lived in a glass house, that people evaluated me and valued me or devalued me, but even more important, my grandfather, by what I did. And there was kind of a false perfectionism that I struggled with. And I find my progress in life is dealing with getting out of that box, that prison, that I put myself in. My mother never intended that. She was just trying to teach me obedience and wanting me to try to do the right thing, to be a good boy.
And I was thinking, “Everybody’s looking; and if I’m late, I better have a good excuse.” Well, or make something up, you know? Or, [I’d think] “I’m trying really hard” so it was hard for me to admit that I had things to learn or to make comments in class because I might look dumb; and I’m not supposed to look dumb.
So, as I think about that kind of evaluation from a personal perspective, while growing up, I’ve had to develop an internal gyroscope, something I work out with my Heavenly Father. I need to ask what is good to do and how do I know and base it on something that is more eternal, more personal, more in a relationship with Heavenly Father, and with those who represent Him more than on the opinions of others.
For me it is first what’s worth doing? How do I know? Am I trying to just please people? It’s a question I continue to ask myself when I’m teaching and wondering about teacher evaluations. Is this only about evaluation or is this about some other higher purpose? What I’m trying to do and to be in my interaction with those students? That’s an ongoing issue for me.
I think I’ve developed some skills for understanding how people react to me, and being sensitive... in leadership or administrative positions. In part that comes from a sort of hypersensitivity [in] paying attention to how they feel. So on the one hand their evaluation is still important to me. I can feel it and I’ve developed some skills around listening that feel in part like spiritual gifts that are about trying to read [or understand] where somebody’s heart is. How do they see the world? Not just how I do. What are they thinking?
.... [I try to] see what people see, hear, and what they’re feeling. So when I step back from it, looking back on my life I think, “That wasn’t all bad that I learned to pay attention to what other people were thinking and feeling.” But it wreaked havoc for me for lots of years in terms of how am I doing and how do I know and how can I innovate? If I’m only worried about how people think, how do I contribute something and figure out when it’s ok to take a step or two away from the crowd and be a counter puncher or say, “No here’s something of value that we’re all missing.” So evaluation is a loaded word for me, can you tell? It probably is for a lot of other people.
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