Pieces

The following is a piece I wrote in 2015. This was before I was a believer in Christ. I feel like so many of our youth struggle with this issue and I just really wanted to share. I’ve decided to keep it as it’s original form so you may see some typos in there. 🙂

I care about what people think.

This might seem weird to people, but I actually am openly admitting that I care about what people think. I have cared about what people think for as long as I can remember. I remember agreeing to things that people thought was “cool” because it made me feel good to not be an outside.  At the same time, I still had a bit of urge to be different.

At the age of five I purposely picked “red” as my favorite color, even though it was actually pink because I didn’t want to be the same as all my Pre-K companions and friends.  Growing up I was a shy kid, never leaving my little sister’s side because she was my friend at home and outside. Still I had a lot of good friends throughout elementary school. When I was in second grade I lead a group of friends during recess and told them that we were witches. (I watched a lot of Sabrina the Teenage Witch at the time.) So maybe when I was younger I might have cared less. The older I got the harder I found it was to “be myself.” I put “be myself” in quotes because I’m realizing that I’m not really sure who that person would be. 

Sure if I think about “myself” as when I’m alone maybe singing from the top of lungs, dancing, mocking really stupid things, but I still have the question “who am I?”  Friends and family who know me would describe me as a peacemaker, with maybe a little bit of edge when I’m pushed too far, but the truth is that on the inside I’ve been really afraid of what people think of me. I’m a bit shy, outgoing when I’m in the mood, I turn red really quickly, and I barely have the balls to dance in front of people. 

Early years of middle school were tough. I was a nerdy kid who made the honor roll in a school where skipping, smoking weed, getting into fights were the cool things. Especially as a shy kid who cared what people think I found it hard to “be myself.” Being “me” in those years would entail talking about really weird random stuff. Not too weird but definitely not what the cool kids would probably find them do. I loved talking about dreams. I could go and on about the dreams that I had and make up stories to my friends. It was so much fun for me. But still I cared about what people think. I wanted to be cool, I wanted boys to think I was pretty, and to have fun!

But how can a shy nerdy kid who loves talking about witches and dreams be cool in an environment like that?  I wasn’t a big fan of sports, and I definitely didn’t feel like a dancer or a cheerleader. So I carried on watching the cool kids while I stayed quite to myself and a few really good friends.

My friends were pretty awesome. They were sweet and accepting, they weren’t the “cool kids.” But to this day I would say they were pretty good people and probably still are. In eighth grade I started getting more attention. I started hanging out with the cooler kids and as a result I started to have fun! I really did. I felt accepted and more confident. But I lost one of my really good friends. The reason was pretty stupid, one of the cooler kids I started hanging out with got into a fight with her best friend and because we were in a group we kind of had to pick sides. I choose the cool kids, betraying my good friend since elementary school. We were still friends here and there, but I knew that things had change, I had cooler friends now, that I had fun with and was accepted. But deep down inside I was still that dream talking, witch loving, nerdy little girl. 

Once I got to high school I found myself in a group of friends that was based off of what I believed was cool and fun! Until I moved to a different high school my first year and then I started over. 

The environment of this school was way different from where I grew up. It was preppy and less diverse than what I was used to. I found myself as my 6th grade self, shy and extremely afraid of what people thought of me.  But it wasn’t so bad; I got through high school making friends with different groups of people. Never really making long-lasting friendships because friendships require my unmasking of who I am, which at the time, I didn’t know. I just went with the flow making it by. I regret that I didn’t take off that mask, but at the same time, maybe that mask wasn’t a mask, maybe it was just a result of caring what people think. College was a bit of the same, I was loner who made friends with people in my classmate and a few friends here and there, but no true genuine long-lasting friendships.

Throughout high school and college the only friends I could bare to unmask myself would be my sister and my best friend, but even then it gets tricky. My sister of course did not really have this problem and neither did my best friend, at least not that I’m aware of. 

I care about what people think and it’s really been bothering me.  I know I’m not the only one, we all care about what people think, and it sucks that sometimes we change ourselves only for moments of acceptance. 

I’m not in school anymore, I graduated little over a year ago and I still have this anxiety of caring what people think. 

Am I cool? Am I a hypocrite? Am I a loner? Am I weird? Am I sweet? or Smart? Does it matter?Isn’t it weird that we care about what people think of us so much? 

I’ve read that public speaking is the number one fear for most people. Why is that?  When we’re all just bodies with eyes, ears, feelings, and thoughts, why do judgements have to affect us so much?

I could be in this world entirely by myself and be an alien experiment. Because through my own eyes and conscious is how I interpret, react, and experience the world. 

The memories that I have and hold on, or my obstacle of caring what people think is only coming from myself. If I closed my eyes and forgot about the world for moment everything could go away and all that would be left would by my awareness. 

So why do I wear a mask to please or to avoid confrontation?  Fear of confrontation? That is something for myself as my friends and family call me the peacemaker, makes sense to me.  Getting over that fear (Fear-False, Evidence, Appearing, Real) is exactly the struggle that brings me to this place of caring what people think, but if you ask me…how can you have fun without caring what people think? 

In a world that is so measured by ideals of money, fashion, partying, friends, it’s hard not to care about those things.  We constantly see ads telling us to wear products to make us feel good, or models with bodies we should look up to. Or people with money saying that’s how we should live. While third world countries have people dying of incurable diseases and barely making a $1 a day. 

So why do we care about what people think? 

Maybe it’s because fitting in is hard to do, when we’re constantly given a mold of how it should be. How we should feel and act. 

From reading Eckhart Tolle, and listening to YouTube psychologist and Infinite Being Ralph Smart, I’ve realized that the only way to overcome fear, and illusion that caring about what people think is important is by truly loving and embracing every part of your being. My flaws, insecurities, accepting myself truly, loving myself truly are the ways that I can overcome the anxiety of caring what people think. I believe that no one should ever be afraid of posting something on social media, or saying what they want to say, or standing up for what they believe in, or even acting crazy! Be who you are, and who you are is right now. 

Eckhart Tolle talks about being completely present in the moment, deeply rooted, which is where we find our center peace and joy, because the past is only relevant to teach us lessons about our life, and our life is only right now. 

If you look around you, the walls, your clothes, the screen, your breath, this is the present moment and this is what counts. If you want to be crazy, be crazy, and if you’re afraid of what people, think like I am, that’s okay too, go with your flow. Either way your actions will teach you something and lead you to the ultimate reality that what people think of you does not matter.

The more we can accept this, the less of an obstacle it is. 

So I rise the question again who I am? I am…me. Who are you? You are you..

“Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.” Eckhart Tolle