It's no secret -- we care what other people think. No matter how badly we want to pretend like we don't care, we do.
Ever since I can remember, I've woken up and chosen an outfit based on what I thought other people would like. In middle school, it was name brand t-shirts and Uggs. High school brought overly priced jeans and a face full of too much makeup. As popular styles changed, I went with them. In the effort to stand out and be noticed, I had allowed myself to fall into the same cookie cutter mold as everyone else. I was just another face in the hallway. It didn't matter if I was comfortable or even liked the clothes I was wearing. It didn't matter if I was listening to music that I didn't like or pretending to laugh at jokes I thought weren't funny. I didn't care about that -- all that mattered was that I was keeping up with everyone around me.
But, things started to change when I began to realize that I actually wasn't paying attention to anyone but myself. I didn't care what the other girls were wearing because I was too distracted by what I felt were my own flaws. What I had failed to see before was that everyone else was so busy doing exactly the same thing as me to even care about what shoes I had on or if my bag was name brand. It took me too long to realize this -- everyone else is so busy caring about what others will think of them that they have no time to notice those flaws that you've been trying so hard to hide. I had wasted years of my life passing by opportunities and things that made me happy because I was too afraid to go against the grain. I wanted people to think I was cool, funny, nice, happy, and all the good things I could possibly think of that I gave up being who I actually was.
When I finally went away to college, I had a clean slate. I had the chance to be whoever I wanted. I could be that cool, funny girl with the best clothes and best makeup techniques that I had always thought I wanted to be. Or, I could throw away all of my old habits and just start living a life that made me happy. And that's just what I did. It didn't take long for me to realize that nobody cares where I bought my clothes. It doesn't matter what kind of music I listen to or if I like to read. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about all of those little pieces because they don't matter. I've now been able to use all of this free time that I'm not spending worrying about the opinions of others to make a better person out of myself. And trust me, life is so much happier because of that.
Now, I'm not going to say that I've given up completely on trying to make good impressions because those are important to me. Instead of living a life bound by materialized expectations, I now work to live one based on this -- if I am considered a good person by those around me then I have done my job. However they want to define "good" is fine by me. Because the fact is this, people are going to judge and create opinions whether they are true or not. And because of that, I have decided that caring about what other people think of me is usually a waste of time.
I mean, why live a life bound by the expectations of others when you can live fully and happily in your own skin?
