Today, someone hurt my feelings. It wasn’t a super close friend, just someone I know. I called a friend of mine to vent. Her advice was this “Sarah, who the fuck cares?” And she meant this with love. She went on to say “It doesn’t matter what this person thinks of you. If I had one piece of advice for you it would be this: stop caring what other people think about you.”
You know what, she is absolutely right. I realized that this is something that I struggle with. It’s a common pattern that I see with myself. Someone’s behavior towards me hurts my feelings, makes me angry or offends me in way shape or form so I internalize that feeling. I blame myself. I must have done something to piss them off.
Then I rack my brain for what it could be. What did I do to upset this person that they would turn around and hurt me? My mind continues to obsess and analyze all the possible ways I could have offended this person. In reality, this is a total and utter waste of time that I could be using to do something productive like write a novel. Seriously, the amount of time I spend obsessing over what other people think about me could amount to a solid work of fiction.
Though I believe my friend is right with regard to her statement, I wonder if it’s possible to truly “not care” what other people think about you. I mean, I know that I spend an inordinate amount of time ruminating on this topic, but is it possible to not care about what other human beings think about you?
I believe this is part of the human condition. We all want to be liked by other people (unless you’re a sociopath) and so you tend to care about how other people see you.
So the question remains: is it truly possible to not care about what other people think about you? I wonder if it’s a self-esteem issue. If you’re confident in yourself and who you are, perhaps you are more apt to blow off the behavior of other people.
While I’m pondering this question, I’m going to pretend I don’t care if you comment on this post. But really, I do care. 🙂