(Credit to Pinterest for this gem.)
In BMW, Feeny tells Cory that, “If you let people’s perception of you dictate your behavior, you will never grow.”
Hmm, interesting, isn’t it?
When have we seen someone letting other people’s perception of them dictate their behavior, thus stunting their growth?
Oh, yeah, Maya during the non-triangle arc.
This is LITERALLY what happened with Maya. Riley insinuated that Maya was turning into her and that she’d lost herself because she wasn’t getting detention or standing on tables. She was wearing nice clothes, getting good grades and, most egregiously, liking a nice boy, the same boy as Riley! I mean, how COULD that be possible? Well, as far as Josh and Riley were concerned, it wasn’t possible.
Maya, as Riley had always conceptualized of her, was changing before her very eyes.
So, what does Riley think has happened? She thinks Maya has lost herself and that she needs to find her inner rebel again and they set out on a mission to help her do just that.
Except, she ends up getting pushed too far to the other side and we find ourselves at True Maya, where she’s itching to be bad and Riley’s singing songs about it, talking about how she was very careful to put her back exactly where SHE needed Maya to be. By the end of the ep, Maya remembers that there is some good inside of her, but the damage is done.
By Ski Lodge 2, Maya is fully regressed. She doesn’t want a nice guy and is hellbent on adventure and rule breaking for adventure and rule breaking’s sake.
In I Do, she’s so far regressed that she tries to stop her mother’s wedding and doesn’t believe in hope anymore. It’s not until Shawn helps her begin to gain that hope back at the end of the episode that Maya begins her slow crawl back towards growth and balance.
So, what does that sound like?
Maya let Riley and Josh’s (and everyone else’s, but mostly Riley and Josh’s) perceptions of her and who she should be dictate her behavior, causing her to regress on her growth.
I have a very hard time believing that the same people who taught that letting other people’s perception of you dictate your behavior would keep you from growing, would then go on to teach that sometimes when you start to have hope and do good for yourself, you are actually turning into your best friend/absorbing their feelings in an attempt to test their crush and protect them.
I have a hard time believing they would dismiss positive growth as the result of an identity crisis.
This is the team that taught us that you can’t let what others think of you and who you should be control how you act, because that will keep you from growing.
And that is exactly what happened to Maya.
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