Image Maintenance

The other day, I saw a cleaning company van  with the following logo:

“We are in the Image Maintenance Business.”

I found this quite amusing.  If we were completely honest, most of us would have this logo on our cars, our homes, our bodies, our clothes, our kids, etc. We all spend a great deal of our time and energy on maintaining our self-image. We want to be perceived as good, attractive, smart, successful, capable, competent, etc.  Therefore, we display our positive traits while camouflaging our negative traits.

Image making and maintenance is a normal phase of human development. According to author Richard Rohr, during the first half of life, we typically operate from our ego-consciousness. Everything is self-referential at this stage: How does this affect me? How does this make me look? What’s in it for me? This is a necessary part of figuring out our place in this world, our purpose. Unfortunately, some of us get stuck in this phase well into the second half of our lives. As young adults, we create an image and then spend the rest of our lives trying to maintain it. Some cultures encourage this behavior from generation to generation. Instead of recognizing it as developmental stagnation, these societies condone status seeking and social climbing, even among those who are old enough to know better.

By the second half of life, we are capable of moving on from this egocentric paradigm. We can recognize that using ourselves as a reference point is silly. As we realize our insignificance, we become less attached to our visions. As we evolve, we become less concerned about how we fit into this world and more interested in God’s purpose.