Hey Scott: What’s One Thing That Helps You Get Through the Day?
There are hundreds, but a single sentiment stands out.
This series began when I told my friend I could probably write about 500 words, give or take, on pretty much any topic presented to me. If you’d like me to write about something, feel free to email me at srm5082@gmail.com.
I’ve always been pretty preoccupied with what other people might think of me. It drives me crazy, and I don’t really know why.
I think about what they may be thinking about way too much, and by way too much I mean I do it to a detrimental and unhealthy degree — am often unable to turn it off or divert my seemingly endless contemplation to something else. It’s kept me up more than a few nights.
It’s gotten to the point that sometimes when I catch a clock at 11:11 I make a wish that I’ll be able to figure out how to stop caring so much — that I can get it down to a level where it’s no longer interfering with my daily life and how I choose to live it.
Far be it from me to believe this is a way of thinking that I can rapidly transform overnight. Or that all it’s going to take is making a wish at a certain time of day. It can’t hurt, but jury’s out on if it ever really actually helps. It’s sure not a logical way to pursue change, and taking things into my own hands is probably going to bear more fruit in the long run (especially since I just revealed that I have made this wish, which apparently makes it null and void).
One thing among the many that get me through the day is the idea that nobody really cares all that much about you. And that it’s kind of ignorant to believe that they do. My intrusive thoughts are often unfounded and not to be trusted, can be flat-out wrong. And I take some comfort in those potential or even likely inaccuracies. My mind is most often my best friend and the entity I rely on above all else, but that doesn’t mean we’re always on the same page — not at odds with one another when it comes to the best way to operate.
Unsurprisingly, David Foster Wallace delivered a piece of this sentiment in a much more eloquent way than I ever could with his brief passage from Infinite Jest: “You’ll stop worrying what others think about you when you realize how seldom they do.”
I have this quote printed out and taped on the wall behind my desk, and I refer to it on a daily basis. It’s never far from my sight. It’s helped me reframe my thinking more than several times, and while it doesn’t always fully work, it does tend to help.
I concede that this can’t be applied to every case. I know this because I think about other people almost constantly, and beyond what they might potentially be thinking about me. Who among us doesn’t wonder what someone is up to, or what thought process lends to them behaving in a certain way? Who doesn’t spend some of their time comparing themselves to others, even if they don’t relish that they do? Who doesn’t judge others, even if it’s an unintentional knee-jerk reaction you wish hadn’t made its way into the real estate of your dome? And who doesn’t think they’re special enough to warrant that level of wonder from others?
Those slightly narcissistic tendencies are tough to avoid. Especially in times when I can’t help but lament that I don’t have it just a little bit better, and am exposed to so many people who allegedly or at least on paper seem to really be killin’ it out there.
But it’s important to remember that contemplation and judgment don’t always or even often equate to truly caring. If somebody really cares about what you do and they’re not some sort of cheerleader attempting to spew some serious positivity into your life, then that is their problem, not yours. Just like it’s your problem, not theirs, if the script is flipped and you’re the one thinking about them all the time, for whatever reasons.
In both cases it becomes pertinent to ask yourself: “Why should I care?”
The answer will probably be that you really shouldn’t. Unless they’re close to you and their judgment comes from a place of sincere worry, which can and should be appreciated if it’s coming from the right place. Or if they’re, like, your boss. Unfortunately, you kind of have to care sometimes about what your boss is thinking or thinks of you if you’d like to stay gainfully employed. But in that case, you can pretty much rest assured that aside from maybe a little shit-talking with their partner during the evening dinner or turn-down service when they talk about their day, you’re probably not occupying too many of their waking or sleeping thoughts. Unless they don’t have much of a life. Which would be a shame.
Everyone’s got more than enough of their own shit to worry about, is what I’m saying. That’s challenging for us all, but that doesn’t mean it’s not kinda awesome. We’re all the stars of, and the unreliable narrators, of our own lives. And it’s not a tale of fiction we’re spinning. It’s not our responsibility to develop any of the tertiary characters who come into and out of our story chapter by chapter, but it is incumbent upon us to develop ourselves along the way, so that we can make it a great, epic tale. Or, if we want to keep it low key, just try to do more good than bad, which is, at the end of it all, doing the best we can.
Worrying about others is a big part of doing the best you can. At least in my opinion. But worrying what they’ll think or say all the time, especially to the point that it influences you to act in non-righteous ways, or how you think you should act versus how you want to act is just going to throw you off until you’re so lost it becomes a Sisyphean task to claw your way back.
Consider the death-bed quotient of it all. If you find yourself toward the end of life looking back on all you did or did not do, how you treated others, where you placed your passion and capacity to truly care, you might regret how much time you spent trying to please the unappeasable who didn’t matter that much to begin with, if they truly put any psychological stock into how you were living your life at all.
To quote a scene from The Last of Us: “We have a job to do, and god help any motherfuckers who stand in our way.”
Okay. Maybe that was a little aggressive. Because who’s going to stand in your way in any meaningful way, if nobody really cares all that much? Or, if you don’t really care all that much when they try to?
Nobody cares.
What a beautiful thing.