What's on the Outside?

What’s on the outside? People always tell you to look on the inside for find out what’s really going on, but I wonder… what can you find out from only the outside?

I first thought about fruit. When you head to the store to buy fruit, you have to look exclusively on the outside to see how healthy and ripe the fruit is. You can tell a lot by the color of the fruit; does it have bruises, is it ready to be eaten or does it need more time to mature? You can’t really take a piece of fruit from the store and cut it open on the spot to see what’s inside.

Next I thought about people and cars. Eternally you can tell if they’re clean, well maintained. You can begin to gather some kind of idea as to how they view themselves and their self esteem. I’ve found that normally people with clean cars and clean, fresh appearances take care of themselves and the things that they own. Generally, people who take the effort to dress nicely (myself included), care more about external appearances that those that don’t.

Why do we take so much stock in the external? Personally, I look at the outside because that shows me how you want others to view you. You know that people, who may never sit down to talk to you and find out what’s really going on, will look at the external in one glance and try to figure you out. Right or wrong they may be, but you know going into it that’s going to happen. You have only one chance for a first impression. Even if you’re not “dressed up” please make the effort to look halfway decent. It IS possible to go the gym, run errands afterwards AND look cute all at the same time.

Take care of your exterior. Don’t neglect the inside though. You’ve only got one body and it’s very expensive to repair. I think Thomas Fuller said it well: “Good clothes open all doors”.

I’ll leave you with another quote so you can’t get mad at me because I didn’t say it.

“First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man’s look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily.” – William Hazlitt

DISCLAIMER: Looking at exclusively on the outside is the fact that there may be things lurking behind the exterior that can be dangerous and deceptive. I will say that looking at the exterior has a benefit, but to get the whole picture, you have to look at both sides, internal and external.