One of the hard lessons I have learned in my life is that people are by and large profoundly influenced by the content that their brain pushes into their conscious thought stream.

Everybody lives in the world and in their mind too.

The mind generates a constant "waterfall" of thoughts and other content that just "pops" into a person's consciousness. Lots of folks never reflect much on this.

And lots of people almost regard their thought stream as though it were some kind of infallible revelation that they have to take seriously.

But the fact is, I think, we have reflexive consciousness. We can be victims of our thought stream but also can sometimes step out of it and look at it as though from above.

I don't believe that we have any real control over the cascade of thoughts that bombard people every moment of the day. Heck, we barely have influence over our own thought stream except in moments of reflection and clarity.

It might seem like there are infallible ways to control another person's thought stream about us for example. If I smile, x will happen to the other person. If I give a gift, x will happen. If I am shy, x will happen. If I am outgoing, x will happen.

My feeling, which might be in error, is that people are too complex for this kind of thing. There are people who like shy people. People who like aggressive people. People who like crude people. People who like touchy feely people and people who despise them. Some people regard kindness as goodness. Some regard it as weakness.

I don't know about anyone else, but I feel like I have wasted a lot of my lifetime trying to influence the thought streams of other people.

I have a book at home called "How to get anybody to do anything." It is very interesting and kind of psychologically astute, but I don't think it is full proof by any means.

I've been nice to people who thought I was stupid for not being cynical and hard. I've been less than kind to people who told me they admired me for that. Some people feel close to me when I am in casual clothes. Others are put off by it. When I wear a suit some people have liked it. Others have resented it and thought I was trying to be a big shot.

I don't think we can reliably base our self-worth on what other people think or feel about us. A million and one things have come to be in this person I face in an elevator. I mean it. A million and one things since they were babies until now.

I am trying to be kind of done with worrying about what people think about me and kind of done with all the afterthoughts: Did they think I was too weak or too strong, too smart or too dumb, too ogullible or too cynical, too humorous or too solemn, too outgoing or too shy, too beautiful or too ugly, too lazy or too ambitious, too good or too bad.

People have all these "toos" Too this too that.

And most people, I suspect think there "toos" are Truth and that others are not right.

There is a joke about two men in a hotel lobby. One is watching the other. The other man walks up to women and asks them something. After that he gets slapped in the face. After a while the man asks the other man: "What are you saying to these women that they slap you?" He replies, I am asking them if they would go out with me on a date." The other man says: "I bet you get slapped a lot." And he replies, "Yeah, but I sure get a lot of dates."

I don't know, but I think if we base our self-worth on what other people think of us, we are in for a world of hurt because we are placing our very value as human beings in the fickle mind of others. What do you think?