Lately it seems that alot of people around me, including myself have been scared or intimidated by what other people think!! If you knew me or my friends, you would understand that it's completely out of our character to actually care about what other people think of us....or at least the ones we don't know. After thinking about this for the past couple of days I've come to the conclusion....don’t waste a moment of your precious life worrying about what other people think of you. Nothing good will ever come from it.
The truth is that we’ll waste far more energy imagining what others think of us than those people will ever invest in it themselves. I was afraid to bike down a busy street the other day because I was afraid of what the people on the various patio's might say about me. Then I realized that most people are far too preoccupied with their own lives to devote considerable attention to what I'm doing. While I'm the one worrying about what they think, they’re worrying about what you think of them. Just worrying our lives away....
One of my friends was in the process of meeting someone new, but then before you could say congratulations it all fizzled away! It didn't make much sense to me, but then after speaking to one of my coleagues at work I got this advice; "Instead of being concerned with what others think, become concerned with what you think of yourself. Your opinion of yourself matters far more than the opinions of others, no matter how wise, intelligent, or well-meaning you think they are." I guess you learn a few things being married with two kids!
After listening to what he had to say I realized that other people’s opinions of me are theirs alone and have very little to do with me. No one else really knows what I'm capable of. When I take a step back and think about this, it makes perfect sense but then when I relate it to some of the nonesense my friends are going through....it's crystal clear.
I want the people around me, including myself, to realize that we won't turn into some kind of inconsiderate, anti-social jerk if we stop being concerned with what others think of us. Even as we meet or act with resistance from others on the outside looking in, we’ll still be serving as a role model to help them overcome their own fears. I like to refer as those individuals as 'wanksters' (circa 2002).
When any one of my boys decides to venture into a new relationship we all give them the hardest time for no apparent reason. Then I realized that it’s common. The 'wanksters' will launch into long-winded explanation about why you’re doomed to failure, but there’s no reason why that should stop them. Most of the time we’ll be speaking from fear, not love, anyways....go figure! "Fear speaks from limitation; love speaks from possibility."
Think about this though...what happens if those other people were actually right? What if we were to go out and fail 'butkhi big time' even after we were warned by our boys that this would happen? It doesn’t matter at all if you ask me. Even when they’re right, they’re still wrong. We’re supposed to go out and fail as much as we can. In my opinion it’s perfectly okay for anyone around me to tell me that I'm going to fail and that I'm going to fall flat on my face right in front of them. That’s supposed to happen. The real lesson is for me/us to learn to be OK with that. Which is why I will continue to rip my friends on relationships, style and definitely when their not wearing a clean pair of slacks!
