Midashinami is a Japanese word involving two ideas related to personal appearance and presentation:
- Body, self, or person
- Cultivated habits, refined manners, and social grace
Midashinami is NOT about fashion, which is more about style, impressing others, and a desire for admiration. Midashinami is a more subtle concept, a form of social outward emotional intelligence:
- Personal appearance: Demonstrating self-respect by cleanliness, grooming, proper clothing, and attention to detail.
- Situational social awareness: Understanding what is appropriate for the venue and how your appearance, conversation, and deportment will impact those around you.
In Japan, practicing good midashinami serves as an unspoken signal of reliability and respect and reflects that culture’s other-centered emphasis v. America’s more self-centered orientation.
Relevance? Everywhere we go, we influence the situation and the people present; everyone leaves an emotional wake, a lingering psychological residue of who we are, of our character and competence, ethical standards, and principles. Attitudes are contagious as are belief systems; our behavior and personal presentation teach our value systems. It behooves us to take responsibility for what we teach and the impact we have on others and the world around us.
Closing Quotes:
“You cannot not communicate.” – NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
“Example is not the main thing. It is the only thing.” – Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965
“What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, ‘Social Aims’
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” – James Baldwin, 1924–1987, ‘Nobody Knows My Name’
“Emotions are far more contagious than any disease. A smile or a panic will spread through a group of people far faster than any virus ever could. Don’t bring your grouchiness, your skepticism or your fear in. It might spread.” – Seth Godin, ‘Purple Cow’
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
