Life, An Open Book?

There are many people who boast that their life is an open book and that there’s nothing in their life that is hidden from others. I don’t think that’s true. In fact every one in their lives can never be totally an open book because every body has something or the other that he/she would not like to share with others, something that they only keep to themselves or at most to a selected few. Again, there are certain aspects that neither we nor others know about us.
The following illustration is called the Johari Window which gives a view of ourselves as it appears to us and as it appears to others.

	Things I Know	Things I Don't Know
Things Others Know About Me	AREA/OPEN	BLIND
Things Others Don't Know About Me	CLOSED	DARK

The first pane (arena/open area) of this window reflects the aspects of us known both to self and others i.e. the aspects of us which the others are fully aware of and so are we and so is the arena or open area.

The second pane (blind area) represents the aspects of ones self known to others but are not aware ourselves e.g. may be a person is dominating but is unaware of it himself and when others tell him he is surprised at it i.e. he remains blind to these aspects.

The third pane (closed area) represents those aspects which are known to self but are not shared with other people. In fact others may not be aware of the information in this area. The person hides certain information about himself/herself from others.

The fourth pane (dark area) is the area where a person’s characteristics and behavior are neither known to self nor to others e.g. some latent potential etc.

As already said above a person may have a closed area that he/she intentionally hides from others or maximum discloses to one or two people trusted very much by the person. Perhaps for some reason, which I may not fully be aware, I may keep certain information hidden from others. These may either be certain doubts, anxieties or some fears of either rejection by others and so people may put on a mask. And so I believe that almost everybody has a closed area –information that one does not want others to know or hides from others. So, saying “My life is an open book” doesn’t make sense because one can never be an open book to everybody as every person has a closed side to him/her.



Community discussing C and its derivatives like Win32, C++, MFC, C# tutorials - www.cfanatic.com