think of us, whether we are deemed good or bad by the community…

This can quickly become a painful topic, and our thoughts can descend into bonfires of

worry: what if we are accused of something, what if we are ostracised and mocked, what

about if we become a pariah?

A useful way out of the panic was suggested many centuries ago by the Stoic thinkers of

Ancient Greece and Rome.

They suggested that we divide the topic of reputation into two.

On the one hand, who we are and what we think of ourselves.

And on the other: what other people may decide to declare or say about us.

The Stoics reminded us of an important detail.

We can never be certain of the second part of the equation; we can’t control the world

beyond a certain point.

There is always the possibility that someone vengeful, mean or disturbed will say something

about us and try to damage us.

We can never be completely assured that they won’t.

This might seem like alarming news, but the Stoics wished us to take it on board with

courage and then gain strength from focusing on the first part of the equation: what we

think of ourselves.

And here, things are far far brighter, because we are far more in control.

We can calmly evaluate what we’ve done, what our hearts are like - and we can then

come to a view of what sort of people we are, which provides us with a vital bulwark against

the possible vagaries and tempests of public opinion.

We have a solid anchor.

We know who we are.

Modern psychotherapy would add an important detail to this analysis.

Our sense of who we feel we are is often highly distorted in a negative direction by our past

- which makes us far more jittery about public opinion than is sound.

Our sense of self is the result of how other people viewed us in childhood, especially

our parents or caregivers.

Some of us wander the world with an acute sense of shame and self-distrust that we absolutely

don’t deserve, and project a lot of paranoia and fear onto others - primarily because we

have been treated with disdain in our early years.

We will start to feel a lot more solid and immune from the ups and downs of gossip once

we become conscious of how negatively biased we have been and settle in our minds what

we are worth - irrespective of either what figures from our past said or what someone

around us now might suddenly decide.

The path to immunity from worry about reputation lies in a more secure and just handle on our

own value.