Caring About What Others Think
The Problem
Alright, so let’s be honest — as much as we claim to not care what others think of us, we do. We try and dress well so that we can impress others. We put up posts on social media and obsess over how many likes we get. We don’t say “NO” to a social event even though we don’t want to attend, just so our friends don’t ostracize us.
We buy the latest iPhone, a new car, a new house. Sometimes we buy these things less because we REALLY want to and more because of the psychological state that the act of buying them gets us to. Basically, our “status” has risen in society because of all the possessions that we now have.
“So many people are buying things they don’t actually want to impress people they hate.” — Gary Vee
Ok, let’s keep shopping aside. Sometimes, we go over and beyond(and this is where it gets really problematic) to do things that make us unhappy, just because “Oh, what will society think?”.
I’m gonna stay at my current job and put off pursuing what I really want to because “Oh, what will my colleagues/peers think of jobless-me?”.
I can’t let my child marry someone from a different caste/religion, because “Oh, how will my family/friend circle react to that?”.
Ok, so we know there’s a problem. In fact, this may be THE big problem. Alfred Adler, an Austrian psychologist claims that all problems are interpersonal problems. There is no such problem/worry that arises that is completely defined by the individual. Internal worry does not exist. Whatever the worry that may arise, the shadows of other people are always present. For example, you’re worried about your short height or how you look. At first, it might seem like a problem independent of others. But is it really? If you were the only person on planet Earth, would you care about your appearance? No. The worry only comes about through comparing yourself to others.
Not All Problematic
Ok, so let’s step back and determine why we evolved in this manner. Why do we obsess about what others think?
Back in the hunter-gatherer days, if you disagreed with a tribe member, and the tribe decided to kick you out, you were essentially all on your own. That was a tricky place to be. Without the support of your tribe, survival would be next to impossible. Hence, it was extremely important to care about what your tribe thought.
Now, let’s talk lobsters(Thank you Jordan Peterson). Lobsters are obsessed with status and position, like a great many creatures. They need a safe hiding place to rest, free from predators and the forces of nature, so understandably, they are territorial. Lobsters will fight amongst each other ferociously for territory. The winner lobster gets the territory and is more likely to win future battles for territory. It’s a winner-take-all world. What’s interesting is that the neurochemical configuration of a winner lobster contains high amounts of serotonin and low amounts of octopamine. And a defeated, sulking lobster will have the exact opposite configuration. Why is that important? These are the very same chemicals that the drugs given to depressed human beings aim to regulate. The brain understands whether you’re a winner or a loser. Even chickens establish a “pecking order”. The determination of Who’s Who has important implications. The birds that always have priority access to whatever food is sprinkled in the yard in the morning are the celebrity chickens. Then come the hangers-on and the wannabees. And then finally, come the malnourished, partially-feathered chickens. The point here is that the “status feeling” goes beyond just human life. There is a part of our brain that keeps track of our position in society and that part is ancient and quite fundamental.
Furthermore, if this part of our brain has survived years and years of evolution via natural selection, it must have had an important role to play in our survival.
Ok, so Why is it So Problematic Now?
Well, now, we don’t all live in survival mode anymore. Civilization has advanced to a great degree. Thankfully, the majority of us don’t worry about survival on a day-to-day basis. If you disagree with someone on the internet, your survival is not at stake. Does it really matter that Twitter account @abc124012832131 said something hurtful? No, but we sure act like it does.
Don’t get me wrong. The internet is an amazing thing. It has opened up a plethora of opportunities, but it sure did come with a cost. One of the costs is that the entire world is now exposed to us — all its wonders and problems alike. Back in the day, (even upto a generation back), if that part of your brain had to determine your position in society, it had to deal with a 100 people more or less. Your family, your friends, your colleagues — these were the people who comprised “society”. But, now, with the internet, society has essentially become “the entire world”.
So, basically, in my opinion, two things are at play here. One, we don’t need the status feeling as much anymore for survival, but the neurochemical effects continue to remain the same. And while the significance of the status feeling has reduced, its prevalence in society has increased exponentially because of the internet.
The only way out of this mess is to combat this status feeling head-on.
The Way Forward
Ok, so what do we do?
On a personal standpoint, we need to start working on ourselves first. Yeah, climate change is a problem, but we won’t be able to solve it if we don’t have our lives in order to begin with. We must make sure that we’re constantly becoming better versions of ourselves. And trust me, there’s a lot of scope there. We need to reframe our perspectives about our immutable weaknesses. For example, rather than sulking about your short height, which you can’t do anything about, you can view it as an advantage — people often let go of their wariness in the presence of short people.
On a societal standpoint, there are multiple things we can do.
1. Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back.
This is Rule 1 in Jordan Peterson’s book “12 Rules for life”. Perspective matters, and your body language shapes perspective. If you slouch, and present yourself as defeated, then people will react to you as if you are losing. If you straighten up, people will look at you and treat you differently.
“Treat yourself how you want others to treat you”, right?
2. Stop comparing yourself to others.
Understand that it’s futile to compare yourself to others. Life it too short to sulk over how others are doing so much better. It’s also too short to follow others’ dreams instead of yours. The antidote is to let go of others and focus on yourself. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, instead. I wrote more about it here
3. Learn how to not give a fuck.
Mark Manson wrote a beautiful book about it. We give way too many fucks about what people think about us.
Here’s how I’ve come to view it — We can’t become absolute rebels and not care about anyone. We are social animals, after all. There are degrees of connections that we have with people. The closest degree would be your immediate family and your closest friends. Then come your relatives, the people you work with, and good friends. Then come acquaintances and people you don’t know. It’s like the LinkedIn network.
The amount of fucks we give about what a person thinks should be dependent on the degree of connection that they belong to. The higher the degree, the less you should care about what they think. The lower the degree, the more you can be willing to do things for them that might make you unhappy.
Heavily inspired by 7am conversations with Naveen Indala
