Why You Should and Shouldn’t Care About What Others Think of You

Hi Alden,
We are conditioned from an early age to care what others think about us. I believe we should let go of the trivial stuff when it comes to what others think of us but we should represent ourselves authentically. It’s who we really are.
 

I’ve always been the type of person who is constantly wondering what others think of me. This led me to be pretty shy all the way up through high school, and is why I still hate public speaking. When you have an insecurity in yourself, its often what you think others see immediately. For me, my weight has always been an issue, and to this day I always believe people will perceive me to be chubby or out of shape, and this truly leads to me worrying over and over what people are thinking. I also think that (although this may be a generalization) females tend to over think and over-analyze everything way too much. I know that when an encounter doesn’t go the way I wish it would have, I go over every single little thing in my head, and eventually come up with how the scenario could have gone perfectly if I did this, or said that. Then I try to remind myself, its in the past, and theres nothing I can do about it now.

What did Dr. Seuss say about this?

 ”Those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”I only care about what the people I care about think, that is, my family and close friends. I don’t need to block out the nice “noise” they make inside my head. Thanks you for a great post!

Disclaimer: I understand that there is no perfect blog post.
All writers, from amateurs to professionals, can make errors in their writing,
whether it is syntactical or grammatical or whatever other errors exist. What I
believe is most important in a blog post is its message. Not everyone has the
best arguments, but I often value their effort in trying to convey their ideas
and arguments to the best of their ability because their ideas may produce some
sort of inspiration for others to change themselves, do good for the world,
contribute to humanity, be a better person etc. However I felt that this blog
post does not represent those ideals for its readers which is  contradictory to what this blog is supposed
to be about (“motivation” and “self-help” as written in the “About” section). It
does not help its readers, and perhaps is even DETRIMENTAL to the mind/psyche
of the readers of this blog. I will now explain why and break down my issue(s)
with this post:

The
problem with most people is that they care too much about what others think.

(THE
STATED PROBLEM)

It’s
a very common psychological issue among us.

More
often than not, when most think about what others think of them, it’s always on
the negative side. We tend to worry about others’ opinions and pre-judgement as
if we’re doing something wrong.

(A
description of what the problem is)

Thinking
about what others think brings you down as you start to focus your energy on
others and not yourself.

(The result of the problem)

My issue with this:

The first possible solution you state for your readers is
that you state:

We can’t help it

(Now, I don’t fully
understand what you mean by this statement. I think you should tread carefully
when making absolute statements, especially for YOUR readers. Think about what
you are telling all your readers: you are telling them there is absolutely
nothing “we” can to do help this problem, when they have come to this blog to
seek advice and information regarding a sensitive problem such as caring about
what others think. )

And this is a very
uncontrollable issue.

(And
not only do you claim that we cannot help it, you also tell your readers they
cannot even control it. This implies they can do nothing in their power to
mitigate or alleviate this problem that may on a daily basis affect them very
negatively. Now, my issue with this is that this blog is supposed to be about
motivation and self-help. How can you motivate someone when you tell them
something like “Oh sorry, there is nothing that we can do about this problem.
This is just the way the life works.” It’s not helpful for your readers to
believe that they have to just accept this problem for what it is since they
are looking answers to their problems. Even if you cannot provide a concrete,
specific answer for a solution, shouldn’t you at least state something that
would suggest that there is some sort of hope of solving this problem? Perhaps
through therapy? Hypnosis? Etc. I think its detrimental for your readers if you
tell your them that there is nothing that they can do (“We can’t help it”) and
that they can do nothing to even help mitigate the problem (“And this is a very
uncontrollable issue”). I also believe this part of this blog post is
contradictory to the “mission statement” (found in the About page) of
pickyourbrain.com. Therefore, I would like to suggest to the owners of this
blog to proof read their blog posts before publishing them.

“It’s
literally in our subconscious.”

(I
understand this statement attempts to explain why the problem is an
uncontrollable issue. But this implies another thing: Everything in our
subconscious is out our control. However, this is a false statement. Not
everything in our subconscious is out of our control. For example, when someone
learns to drive, they are doing the act of driving consciously. Once you become
more adept to driving, you are able to drive miles on the freeway without
consciously having to avoid the walls or knowing when to break at the precise
moment. It all becomes subconscious. The mere fact that you programmed your
brain to learn how to drive on a subconscious level (through
repetition/training) means that we were able to “control” our minds to do so.
Therefore, this shows that one is able to take steps and control their
subconscious. However, it just doesn’t happen in an instant. It takes practice
to “unlearn” a certain…shall we say…habit? And the statement “caring about what
others think”…well, isn’t that just another habit? People change their habits
every day. For example, a long time chain smoker can make a conscious decision
to quit smoking (old habit), and then “subconsciously” quit forever (new
habit).

You
then go on to determine when one should care and not care about what others
think. What I actually can…respect about this part of the post is that you
finally advise your readers when they should not care about what people think.
Whether I agree or disagree with your advise is irrelevant, since you finally
say something that is helpful and is of VALUE.

But then you go on to tell your readers “the reason why
[they] need to care:”

“You need to understand the
concept of face value. Not caring about what others think is good for you, but
it’s also very important to understand what you’re portraying to the world.”

Okay, earlier you state the
reason why you SHOULD NOT care (about what others think) is because “you’re
you. So be it.” Now you are saying that you SHOULD CARE because you have to “understand
what [you’re] portraying to the world.” Well, isn’t what you are “portraying to
the world”  YOU? (hopefully) The real,
genuine you? So at first you want your readers to be real and be themselves,
then three sentences later they shouldn’t be themselves because they have to
consider what the entire world thinks. I feel that this is confusing and
perhaps can frustrate someone. In fact, it does frustrate me to read that
sentence.

“People are judgemental,
face it.”

This is another implied
absolute statement that does no good for your readers.

“You do not want to come
across as extremely deviant or even rebellious.”

Then what should your
readers “come across” as? Extremely normal and obedient? It would be nice to
give an example of the alternative(s).

Then you proceed to make the
most offensive statement in this entire post:

“Ask yourself: Can you
really handle the additional stress of say, quitting your high-paying job to
follow your dream? Can you take the sudden drop in income and what others’ have
to say?”

I know I have reiterated
this at least 10 times by now, but this blog is supposed to be about self-help,
motivation, inspiration etc.

I don’t see how the question
“can you really handle the additional stress of say, quitting your high-paying
job to follow your dream?” is related to caring about what others think. The
question has no value because it’s not related to the topic that you are
talking about.

The second question asks
your readers “can you take the sudden drop in income and what others’ have to
say?”

This truly bothers me
because this implies a drop in income will cause “others” to have something
negative to say about you, which is a false. I do not believe people will
automatically have something negative to say if your income “drops.” If
anything, if you take a job that you “love” or that is your “dream” but take a
pay cut to do it, I believe people will respect you more because you made a
conscious decision to do something that YOU WANT TO DO FOR YOURSELF and not
what others want. Also, if people do say negative things about you, then a
simple solution is to not associate with these people! They don’t support you
and your dreams, so why bother with them? If you truly mattered to someone,
your happiness and goals would also matter to them, and therefore, your
decisions to pursue to happiness and your goals would not need approval from
them.

Another point that I want to
make is that you suggest the people will say something negative about you if
you have a sudden drop in income. Well what possible things can they say
besides point out the fact that you make less money? What does “society” think
when one makes less money than before? Oh, I know, they have somehow DEVALUED
themselves right? Well this is absurd and wrong to me. You CANNOT place value
on a person, a HUMAN BEING, based on income. 
For example: If someone who was homeless won the lottery at 100,000
million dollars,  put all their winnings
into the some sort investment that returns them a 10%  annually, they would technically be
generating an income of 10 million dollars a year. Then lets say this person
retires and just party, eats, and sleeps all day. Would you consider this
person more of VALUE than someone who is a teacher, makes 30K a year, but
teaches instills knowledge in our children and puts everything they can to help
our children  grow for 9 months in the
year? If then the two of them were drowning in the ocean, who would you save?
The teacher or the rich bum millionaire? Who is of more value then?

Yes, I extrapolated all that
from one question. But you have to understand what you are telling and implying
to your readers because this is how I am reading it even with an open mind.

Now for some absurdity:

Would
you walk into a friend’s house and start making condescending remarks of the
interior?

No,
that’d be rude.

So
you see, we’re the guests.

Remember,
we live in this world still. So give yourself the extra trouble.

^^I have no idea what the
hell that analogy means so I have no comment on it. If you would like to
rephrase the statement or even uh, change it all together to clarify what you
are trying to say, please feel free to do so.

Finally, you close your post
with something that is FINALLY helpful to your readers: “It’s best to have the
right balance in your mind,” which is something I agree with!

My comment is not meant to
criticize you as a person or anything like that. I just think you should be
wary of what you write because, if you look to the right, you can see there are
30K people who “Like” this website and perhaps thousands more who come to this
website all the time to seek advice, help etc. As stated in the disclaimer, I
truly believe this post DOES NOT effectively address or SOLVE the issue/problem
of “how to care/not care what people think of you” and in fact the writing is
potentially DETRIMENTAL to the readers. Please take some time to reflect what I
have read and I do really encourage you to re-write this entire post so that it
can benefit the readers.