
“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner”. – Lao Tzu
Nobody is more merciless and ruthless about punishing us than ourselves.
The older you get the more regrets you’ll accumulate – doing what others want instead of yourself, never forgiving a loved one, bad business decisions, not taking a plunge, never getting the body you always desired. The list goes on. There comes a day when you can either do the right thing and rectify them, or be crushed by the weight of them.
We put ourselves down, think we can never be happy, never look or feel great, that we don’t deserve it. Our lives become not a journey but a penance. We want to suffer because we think we’re no good, hate the look of ourselves in the mirror, and constantly put ourselves down.
Life isn’t a big epiphany. John Lennon said it best. “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans”.
Our real lives are about the small ways we try to put ourselves back together.
It’s only human nature to want to be liked and accepted. All too often this leads to excessive worrying about what other people think of you, however. It can have a toxic, negative, debilitating effect on your life. It stops you from living your life to it’s full potential as your scared to try new things and it interferes with your ability to feel at ease with yourself.
An example could be if your too intimidated or embarrassed to try an outdoor fitness group, if you don’t follow your heart and be with someone due to what your friends or family think, or maybe you’re too frightened to take the plunge and start a new career. In other words these are all things that are holding you back from being happy.
From the moment we wake up we are constantly caring what others think of us. We do things to please others and not because it’s truly what we believe in. Our actions, lives and appearance become moulded by what others think. What will my family think? Do these pants make me look too fat? Is it more important what my friends think or that i’m happy?
You will waste your life away doing this never being happy. It’s a terrible way to live. It makes you a coward who waits for other people to take action first and tell you how to live your own life. You become a follower in your own life.
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something in your life” – Winston Churchill
NOBODY REALLY CARES
We all think we’re special and that people are judging us. We may be starting personal training, or at the beach. We may be too scared to come to the first session thinking “I’m scared to show up. I’m too fat/skinny/out of shape/unfit and everyone there will judge me”.
The truth is nobody cares and those people are thinking the exact same thing.
The average person sees the world through themselves. In other words everyone thinks of things relating to “me” or “my”. They are not going to think about you at all unless you directly affect their life. I’ve been a PT for 10 years and never seen someone bother to stop and look or judge or laugh at anyone else. They are too busy concentrating on themselves than to notice anyone else.
In todays online fully connected world nobody has time in their busy lives to think about or judge us. The truth is when we do have time we’re too busy worrying about ourselves and our own shortcomings than to judge anyone else.
The National Science Foundation has conducted a study that claims the average person has 50,000 thoughts a day. Now even if a person did think about you even 10 times in 1 day that means they are thinking about you in only 0.02% of their daily thoughts. Does it really matter what somebody thinks of you in only 0.02% of their time? It’s meaningless isn’t it?
If it’s something to do with your private life do you really care that your friends or family would think for a few days when your taking into account your own personal happiness for the next 50 or 60 years?
We need to throw away these notions that others are judging us or we are never going to be happy.
“You’ll worry less about what people think about you when you realise how seldom they do”. – David Foster Wallace
The world is full of people who live their lives according to what others want. People pleasers who are too scared to live how they truly want, but the people who don’t give a f**k and stand up for themselves are the ones who change the world.
Marc D.