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The surest way to a life disaster is to care what other people think. Thinking about what "they" will say about you, what "they" will think about you is going to lead you to a quite decidedly unhappy life of discontent at best.
Talking with a close friend a few weeks ago I found out that he was not going to follow up on a seriously good venture because as he said "What would people think?"
I'll let you in on a secret that I discovered....
The only people who care what you are doing have nothing happening in their own lives.
The only people who care about what other people are doing are gossipers, not doers, not builders, not entrepreneurs, constructive people have too interesting lives of their own to care what you are doing in your private life.
Who cares what these do nothing people think? If they think bad things about you does it really affect you? Or do you live in fear of them?
Don't Live In Fear
If you do not fear, if you do not care what these other people think of you then they have no power over you and you can go about your life as you wish.
This is sort of similar to life itself, it could be classified as a subset really - these rules that I lay down will bring you greater happiness in your entire life.
Do not fear life, do not fear living.
The current mass media thrives on fear - terrorists, sharks, murders, what do you see on the TV news everynight? Fear mongering.
Leave it behind.
Don't Care What Other People Think
There will always be someone who belittles your plans or what you want to do, even what you are doing - that person is often (always) living in fear of failure themselves. they are scared that you might get ahead and then they won't:
a) Be able to control you (often the case with family) or
b) Make them feel bad because you succeeded and they are still a nothing - worse than a failure.
Keeping that in mind now why would you care what they think?
If I cared about what other people think I would never have taken the route to be a movie star, the number of people, close friends (not any more) that poo poo'ed my ideas and plans and told me I was going to fail.
Make Fun Of What Other People Think
Last week I went clothes shopping (a long and tedious task of trying to find anything that 'fits' me) with a girlfriend as we left we ran into one of her friends going to the same area we invited her to join us.
So there I am monstering around Pantip Plaza and Pratunam Markets grabbing a new laptop and then scouting for clothes with these two girls shorter than 5 foot tall (not uncommon in Asia).
Did I bring stares - yes, of course.
Did I bring more stares walking around with 2 short attractive girls - yes more so.
So what did I do? I put on a show I grabbed my friends hands and we walked as a threesome me in the middle holdin hands and chatting - did this bring more stares and even disapproving looks from some foreign (Western) women? Definitely. Did I care what they thought? Not in the least. After all this really would be most mens fantasy.
Then we entered a clothing shop and the shop assistant came over and made a joke about why I had two women. MY good friend then explained to him the she was my wife and the other girl was my mistress, we used to have troubles but now we were all happy together. The shop assistant was stunned and it stopped his smart alec comments dead.
In Phnom Penh recently I had a similar scenario when I had been out all night and ran into a girl that I had met on my first trip, it was mid morning and I was heading back to my hotel room through the bar on the ground floor.
As I entered I heard one Western guy say "There's that guy I was talking about, who's he with?" His mate then loudly exclaimed "He's with 2 girls!". I felt absolutely no obligation to correct his viewpoint and I could not care less what people would think.
This goes equally for my gay friends, I judge people by who they are and not by what job they have or their sexual prefereance or any other superficial things. This often gets me labeled as gay when in Australia someone who had no life would see me having lunch with a gay friend. And do you know what? If that idiot wants to label me as gay because he saw me talking with a gay guy then congratulations son - you've won 1st prize - a monkey brain to replace your own defective brain.
Although in my travels and frequent bar visits I have often found that the person obsessing over other people being gay is most likely the closet gay - too scared to come out and be himself, too scared what other people will think of him, too scared to actually enjoy his sexuality. Fool.
By confronting what other people think is right and wrong in a direct manner you often disarm them, they have no power to make you feel bad about what you are doing, or guilty that you might be doing someting 'wrong'.
OK, so now I am 'labelled' in Bangkok as liking 2 short women (maybe in Phnom Penh too) do I care what these people think? No. What do I do? Make fun of them and go about my life and enjoy it.
For truth be told if I was into 2 girls at once what does it matter? Who would it hurt? What benefit would anyone gain by gossiping about it? Would I care less anyway.
No matter what you do there is a segment that will disapprove anyway (right wing religious nutters) and there are people who either overtly or secretly wish it was them.
Don't care what other people think.
Oh and my close friend who did not follow through with his opportunity? He met a girl who was significantly younger than him, she was pretty, from a good background, from a different country. He had the opportunity to start dating her but he would not because he was scared what other people would think about a middle aged man (39) dating a 20 something Asian girl (Australian raised) - to the detriment of his own happiness. He has not had a girlfriend now for about 5 years yet he passed up this opportunity because of his fear.
Again to live a happy life DO NOT CARE WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK.
As one reader pointed out most people who would tell you how to live go about spouting rubbish from their mouths every 3 minutes with absolutely no thought, if you try to change your life to make them happy then that is rather foolish isn't it.
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