One of life’s traps is considering what others think about you.
Obviously it does matter to a point. We interact with others. We want to work with them. We want to have friendships. We want respect.
It’s a balance.
But the trap is taking the balance too far to the consideration side and thinking that others care about us. The reality is that most people don’t spend much, if any, time thinking about you.
We all have our own lives to consider. How much time do you spend thinking about your best friend? Maybe 10 minutes each day at the most? That’s not that much time. And it’s probably the same amount of time that the person spends each day thinking about you.
The trap in this is thinking about what others will think when you’re making decisions. Maybe you want to buy a car, for example. You think that your friends would be impressed if you buy a new car. But really they might see it once, like it, and then move on with their own lives. Now you’re stuck with a car that you maybe like and don’t really want to pay for.
Or maybe you want a nice apartment because you want to impress your family. The reality is that your family doesn’t really care where you live. They don’t care if you have roommates so you can save money. They have their own worries going on. They don’t think about you and your apartment that much, if at all.
The takeaway from this is to focus on yourself. Think about the things that matter the most to you. That make you happy. Make your decisions based on yourself and perhaps those that are closest to you like your spouse and children.
It’s okay that people don’t care about you. It’s normal. It also frees you up to make decisions for proper reasons. The ones that matter the most to you. Doing so leads to a lot less disappointment.