I think one of the hardest things in life is that though many of some of us may go through it with this idea that we don't care what other people think, but when it really comes down to it, we do. Often the scariest thing to us is not broken hearts or genuine emotional problems, but hurt pride.Often we're so desperate to impress other people that we put our own moral, beliefs or whole self behind our desire to please. I have met very few people in my life who I believe are genuinely unconcerned about others opinions, and they have all ben extraordinary individuals who I consider to be very lucky, but also very different from myself.
Not so long ago I found myself in a situation that went wrong. And I was more hurt than I expected to be, and I forced myself to consider why. After some soul searching, I was forced to conclude that it was not the events themselves or how they had affected me or those around me that bothered me so much, but idea that now random people, who I didn't even know, may now make judgements about me based on these events. Judgements that I and the people I love know aren't true, but feeling exposed to people I don't know is still a really nasty feeling.
People have a genuine fear of making themselves vulnerable to others. Sometimes I think there is an omnipresent underlying mistrust in all relationships, borne out of a need to protect our vulnerability. Yet this mistrust is only dissolved once vulnerabilities are revealed. This is my unscientific theory for why friendship making can be so hard!
The problem isn't the caring about what others think in itself. Rather, it is the extent to which we let it govern who we are and the decisions we make. Those who let it become too essential a part in their own happiness often suffer from inflated or deflated self-worth. The former isn't really a problem, though it might make you slightly less popular, but the latter can lead to very real self confidence issues.
I think we have to find a balance between caring and not caring what others think, because both can be damaging!
Sleep now
God bless, love Anna
