Reputations

One’s reputation is extremely important in today’s society.  What others think of and how they view you holds a lot of weight.  Depending on whether ones reputation is good or bad can be an influence on how others perceive them.  In a world dominated by social media and how easily news is able to spread, reputation is more important than ever. 

I believe that reputations are easy to develop, but hard to break.  Be it good or bad, people’s perceptions do not change quickly.  In high school I had the reputation of being a very dedicated and studious student.  I was in honors classes, sports teams and president of several clubs.  Because of my involvement in so many activities, I was friends with lots of different groups of people, but I never really had a specific group of friends.  Between studying and my extracurricular activities, I often did not have time to make for my friends as well.  While my studious and high achieving nature led me to be voted most likely to be successful for our senior superlatives, I wanted to improve upon my reputation going forward.  In college, I wanted to make a change.  I did not want to my reputation to be just about what I was capable of doing.  I made the effort to lessen my involvement with outside activities so that I could better work on relationships.  I am also a naturally shy person, so I really tried to make an effort to step out of my comfort zone and be more spontaneous.  Since high school, I have developed the reputation of being much more outgoing and less focused on my own accomplishments to an extent.  I am still very concerned with doing well; I just do not make it my whole priority.  Seeing acquaintances from high school now sometimes takes me back to my old self.  Despite how much I have changed, the perception of me that they have is one of a much more serious person, and I feel like I need to maintain that around them because it is what they expect.  My behavior sometimes reverts back to how I used to be because I feel like that is the reputation I need to uphold.

Another example of my experience with reputations goes back to high school as well.  I will note that I went to an all-girl high school so gossip was everywhere.  Coming in freshman year, one girl had the reputation of being a bully in grade school.  I had heard from several people that she was mean and hurtful to them or their friends.  When both I and that girl ended up joining the swim team, I had the preconceived notion that she was going to be a terrible person.  I did not want to be friends with someone who had that negative of a reputation, because I did not want to be considered a bully by association.  However, as the season went on, I developed a different relationship with the girl.  She confided that yes, she had been mean in grade school, but did not want to be like that anymore.  Over the four years, we eventually became good friends.  However, despite her reputation changing with me, I believe that when it comes to those she hurt in the past, there is nothing she could do to fix their perception of her.  Some people’s actions are too serious to be able to change the reputation they have.  But this also goes to show how one person can have several vastly different reputations depending on who you talk to.  For me, I know her as a funny, sometimes overly sarcastic friend, while for others; she will always be the girl who hurt them.