I live in a world of bridges and sidewalks and coffee shops, malls and open windows and drive-thrus. I live in a world of people. I live in a world of twitter and politics and hasty judgements and anger and laughter.

Every day, I walk by hundreds of people, their minds busy, each of them studying the world around them.

And I care what they think.

Clarification: I care what they think about me. I am obsessed with the self. And I hate myself for it.

As Twenty-one Pilots put it,

I was told when I get older all my fears would shrink,
But now I'm insecure and I care what people think.

It's true. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of disappointing people. I hate being noticed. I hate being ignored. I'm awkward. I hate criticism. I love approval.

Should I be telling you this? I don't know.

Am I complaining? Probably.

Is this overdramatic? Most likely.

Do I tend toward self-deprecation anyway? Most definitely.

I like keeping the facade of the smart, quiet bookworm or the girl who always sits in the library intact. I hold onto my reputations with white-knuckled fists for fear of losing them, and I do my best to stuff my failures in the corner. I fear the people on the bridges, the sidewalks, the malls, the drive-thrus, each one of them, observing the world, having first impressions outside of my control.

I forget so easily the words of Chesterton:

But how much happier you would be if you only knew that these people cared nothing about you! How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it; if you could really look at other men with common curiosity and pleasure...You would begin to be interested in them, because they were not interested in you. You would break out of this tiny and tawdry theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers.

I have discovered that myself has become too large and my life too small. I am too interested in myself to truly be interested in the people around me. I have fallen into the universal sin of selfishness and have lost the ability to forget, for a moment, my own little plot.

Maybe you think I write too harshly of myself. Maybe you think this post has become one of complaint and self-loathing. But, then again, maybe I can stop caring what you think and start living under a freer sky, interested in the vibrant lives of splendid strangers.