Nobody is Thinking About You

I recently heard a commentary on the idea of not caring about what others think about you. The idea was, those who do care what people think are simply creating a narrative in their own head about what someone else thinks of them. We must remember, the way we perceive judgment is often as follows:

Two people pass on the sidewalk and glance at each other. Person A believes that Person B gave them a dirty look during this exchange, and therefore tells themself that Person B does not like something about Person A. Person A continues walking, looking for flaws on their person to try to explain why Person B might not like them.

Person B experiences the same wordless exchange of eye contact to acknowledge Person A’s presence, then continues walking past them on the sidewalk. Person B begins making a mental grocery list in their head, and thinks about what they want for dinner tonight.

There are a few things I’d like to highlight:

• In this example, Person B does not even have a thought about Person A, negative or otherwise.

• Person A creates negative thoughts about themselves and convinces themself that it is coming from the mind of Person B

• Person A might continue on with a negative mood for a period of time after this exchange, while Person B’s mood will remain unaltered.

It is so important that we are able to recognize our own voice in our head. Often, we self sabotage, and convince ourselves that others are thinking the worst of us. The truest form of relief and freedom comes when we are able to discard any preconceived notions we have of the opinions of others, and just exist in our present selves.

What I will say is that this, like most things that have positive influence on your life, is easier said than done. It is an active mental practice that you must participate in; reminding yourself that the voice in your head is not reality, and that you cannot form other peoples’ opinion of you; you can only be yourself and resist the urge to fill in gaps you have on what other people think. The reality is, who cares? Who. Cares. Each of us individually have a full life that each other may not be privy to. Our best shot at sanity is being kind, not caring about the opinions of strangers around you, and only caring about the opinions of those that you hold valuable.