The One Trick To Not Caring About What People Think Oct. 13, 2013 By Nick D'Orazio
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A handful of you are already stating with rebellious pride that you’ve never cared about what other people have thought. For the moment, let’s all agree to ignore that bit of self-denial and contend with reality: you do care about what people think.
And before you start telling me that you don’t care about what “I” think with your middle fingers set from stun to kill, let me agree with you. You probably don’t. My judgement of your personality flaws and life experiences might not mean anything to “you”. To someone else though, my judgement means the world. To someone else, my opinion of them matters. Perhaps even greatly.
Once again contending with reality, I want you to think of the person you “do” care about. It’s easy to claim you don’t care about what strangers think, or what your loosely-connected social network thinks so, please, stop this habit. This doesn’t impress anyone and, deep down, it doesn’t even impress yourself. I want you to focus with every single decibel of human frailty you have and think long and deep about the person / group of people whose opinion you both fear and revere with the magnitude of all of the heavens and earths combined.
And if you are not one for hyperbole, think about the people who cause emotions in you. Think about the person you feel you need to impress. Think about the person you hope never discovers the X, Y and absolutely shocking Z going on in your life. Think about the person you wish would respect you, admire you, and maybe even love you. Think about the person you simply want to make smile every day.
With that person in your mind, I want you to realize that the rest of the world views them as a stranger. The rest of the world doesn’t care about what they think. To you, they are important. To the rest of us, they are less interesting and less relevant then the type of coffee we might enjoy next week if we plan our routes to work correctly.
This person is not special at all.
It is your opinion of them that makes them special. Nothing you can ever do will convince the rest of the world that they are not just another person walking down the street that doesn’t know