Reputations

‘A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.’ –Joseph Hall

Have you ever thought of doing something, even for just a fleeting moment, but decided against it because it might damage your reputation, or give you a ‘bad name’ as some might say? Most of us have, I guess.
And usually almost everyone tries to weigh the possible outcomes of whatever decisions he/she is planning to make. And that’s all well and good, but what really matters is whether or not you still decide to go ahead and do whatever, regardless of what the outcome may be.
There’s always those who might take Joan Jett’s song ‘Bad Reputation’ to heart and use the chorus, ‘I don’t give a damn about my reputation’ as their unofficial motto. And on the other hand, there are those who take the utmost care not to do anything that may be construed as unsavoury to tarnish their reputation.
Reputation is, of course about what people think of you versus character, which is about the qualities that really make you what you are. While character is obviously the ‘real deal’ there’s actually no reason why the two should clash.
How will you be remembered? It’s pretty much up to you? People have a habit of remembering your deeds, but more so, they have a tendency to remember if you did something bad, more than if you did something good. That little indiscretion you committed in high school? Chances are, your classmates may have a clearer memory of that incident than of that time you got a perfect score on that Geo test five years ago – think they’ll remember exactly how difficult the questions were on that test? Hmmm… somehow I just don’t think it’s information that would have spread around as fast or as much as some juicy, scandalous gossip.
And just one incident can be enough to change people’s entire perception of you. Your reputation isn’t something that only old people need to care about upholding, in fact, that’s part of the problem: too many people wait too late to start taking care to consider what effect their actions could have on their reputations. And for some, if they earned a bad reputation in their youth, it would take a lot of effort to try to make people realise that they’re a changed person.
Maybe they can succeed and start building a good reputation, but there will always be people out there who knew them ‘back in the day’ and would always have some memory of what they used to do, and who they used to be. So it’s important to think of your reputation in mind.
If you have a certain type of reputation, people will come to have certain expectations of you. And we all should know by now that by and large we all perform to expectations. Let people expect good things from you and it’s up to you whether or not you’ll fulfill those expectations. And I guarantee your character will also be strengthened.