The Inside View and the Outside View: Self Esteem
The Outside View: I have a full-time job with a mildly flashy title, have two side businesses that are making money, happy and fulfilling relationships, live in a dead-end part of the country, have a fit body, a nice beard, normal clothing, talk too much, and have controversial opinions.
The Inside View: I am not working hard enough, my businesses are not yet successful, feel lonely without local friends, love the place I live in despite its flaws, am not pushing my body nearly enough, and I am constantly disappointed in my beard and clothing, under share my thoughts and feelings by a long shot, and indeed have controversial opinions.
These two views are both true descriptions and yet very much at odds with one another. How is this possible and what should we do about it?
Before I go further, I want to point out how normal we think having an inside view and outside view is. It’s not unusual for us to know that others perceive us differently than we perceive ourselves, but this is not a given. On some Buddhist ontologies of the mind, that’s exactly what we do and that’s the reason we aren’t enlightened. On still other eastern ontologies, this mind-body dualism is simply mistaken. In another timeline, it seems plausible that our views could be more objective, that we would model ourselves only on the outside view. It’s even plausible to me that cognition does not equal subjective consciousness so we could have weird things like philosophical zombies or AI that only has the outside view.
On the logical level, it’s fairly easy to see that the inside view and the outside view are not describing the same thing. Take the example of the beard above. Suppose that someone on the outside says, “Christo, you have a nice beard.” And I think, “I don’t have a nice beard.” Are we expressing the same propositions, or is there a difference? I understand the other party to be saying something more like, “Based on my opinion, I think you have a nice beard” and my view of my beard as something more like, “In my opinion and judgment of beards, this beard does not qualify as a nice beard.”
Sometimes the inside view and the outside view appear to overlap, but they aren’t actually expressing the same thing. Using the example above, both the outside and inside view express “I have controversial opinions.” But broken down, the outside view says, “Based on my opinion, your opinions are controversial,” and the outside view says, “Based on my own opinion, my opinions are controversial.” They are in close proximity to each other, but not logically the same.
Here’s why this matters. When we get confused about and mix up these views, we come to believe false things about ourselves. These false ideas, in turn, become the seeds of self-doubt and negative self-talk. We assume our internal truth is an external fact, or believe an external fact is an internal one. In fact, sometimes people use language to try to force this mix up. An insult, “Your beard is one of the worst beards I’ve ever seen” can add weight to the view “I don’t have a nice beard” and convert it to the thought, “I don’t have a nice beard and everyone else knows that I don’t.”
In addition to the problem above, I also struggle with the reverse issue. I am prone to negative self-talk and tend to hold a dim view of my abilities, and I tend to deflect compliments that don’t match my internal view. In these cases, it would serve me better to hold a more objective view of myself. In this case, holding my inside view causes suffering versus holding the outside view. I should view myself as a capable teacher, for example, even if my own internal assessment says that I am not.
Personally, I find this latter problem to be a much more challenging problem. The external world must be filtered through layers of trust and assessment. At least in theory, my internal view should be trustworthy. The fact that my internal view of myself is not trustworthy is half the battle and the source of some of my greatest suffering in the world.
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A wish, then.
May you see right into the heart of the matter
May you doubt and question and consider and assess
May you judge yourself with as much grace as you judge others
May you reach forever for the outside from the inside
May you reach forever for the inside from the outside.
Coaching Questions:
Are there spaces in your life where adding “From the outside perspective” to feedback from others would improve your life?
Are there spaces in your life where adopting the outside view might benefit you?
How do you tell when you have adopted the inside view versus the outside view?
Has there been a time when you’ve made a radical shift from one view to the other? What sparked that change and was it ultimately beneficial?
