Creating and maintaining the right personal image for you and your company

Recently I read writings from teenagers about what they thought of the ban of junk food in high schools. The majority of response was: it's not fair! It's our freedom! It is our right! Already we are dedictated on what we have to study and wear, they can't take away our junk food! We need sugar, we need junkfood!!!

They all indicated that they knew junkfood was bad for them, although some of them said that junkfood doens't hurt anyone. Yet, taking it away from highschools would enrage them.

It made me think: do they really know what freedom is? They think eating junkfood is their freedom, their right. Freedom from what? Right to what?

Funny how none of them thought that freedom from the educational system's ban may mean slavery to advertising and their junkfood companies. Their right to junkfood may mean slavery to long term bad health. Ever read this book? Its information about the junkfood industry will shock you.

Now, in relating freedom to image. Many people are fashion victims, yet thinking it's their freedom to buy what they want (and what they want is what their culture dictates). With fashion magazines putting out the seasons' "must haves" (I do have two entries on must haves, but truthfully, they are for people who think they have to have the must haves) to draw people's attention, to have them to buy more. It's natural for people to feel that they need to go with the flow of how "everyone" is. No one wishes to be left out. It's true that it is easier to build rapport with people buy acting and dressing the way others are. It is very difficult to stand out like a sore thumb with nothing in common with the crowd.

To me, image management is to find that fine line, the balance, between individuality and fashion trends. I have seen people dressing radically different from others, and they are not accepted as well as those who dress more or so alike. It simply doesn't work. To get along with people, to build relationships, we have to be somewhat alike with others.

Freedom isn't an outward expression. For most part, freedom is within. So, being a rebel in a person's speech and action does not necessarilty mean that the person is expressing his/her freedom. Freedom is a personal choice that has nothing to do with telling others how different they are. They live in their freedom, rather than tell how free they are via dressing, grooming, and communication (most popular in forms of demonstrations).