Things About You

There is this thing called the Johari Window. I am both ashamed and proud to say that the Johari Window is one of the very few things I remember clearly from college. It was created in 1955 by two social scientists as a way to explain interpersonal interactions to the people in them.

The Johari Window, like most windows, has four panes. They have fancyish names for the panes, but this is my breakdown:

Panel #1 - Things you know about yourself that everyone else knows, too.
Panel #2 - Things that you know about yourself that no one else knows.
Panel #3 - Things about you that you don't know about yourself, but that everyone else knows.
Panel #4 - Things about you that no one knows - not you, not anyone else.

Your Johari window evolves over time and depending on the person you are facing. It's my personal opinion that we have a Johari window for every person in our lives, from the most insignificant on up.

I love this construct. I adore it, and I think about it all the time. All of our mysteries laid out in four quadrants - it seems not only manageable but...rational. This is what we come down to. You have four boxes. The things in them - some of it is up to you, some of it you were born with, and most of it was inflicted on you like a wound. But there it is!

It's that fourth pane, though, that plagues me. Things about me that no one knows. I am sorrowful for these things.