I Reduced My Stress Levels By Learning This One Thing

If I had to guess, I would say I was born stressed. A perfectly compiled set of red and white blood cells mixed with some stress particles. Ta-da — here I am!

Numerous times in my life, I’ve found things to stress about — my health, my career, my family, my friendships… my stress.

But there is one thing that’s helped me recently and for all of you other stress victims out there, I hope it’ll help you too.

Lesson One: (and the only actual lesson I personally needed to learn)

No one actually cares as much as you think they do.

A lot of the things you stress about involve other people — your boss, your colleagues, your mom, aunt, grandpa, boyfriend, wife — and the truth is, those people are more worried (and stressed!) about the things going on in their lives to really care about what’s going on in yours to the extent you think they do.

Do some of these people care about you? Of course they do. But they aren’t sitting there thinking, “hm, she didn’t share on social media today” or “does she actually make enough money doing that job”? People don’t care, yet we still let their hypothetical opinions dictate what actions we take.

Once I let go of the idea that everything I did had to impress one person or another, I became a whole lot happier. I stopped stressing over what to share on social media. I stopped worrying about the people who were unfollowing me. I stopped caring about the fact that other people my age seemed like they were so far along while I was still trying to figure things out.

If people act like they care, the comments they make are a direct reflection of how your actions make them feel — good or bad. But again, the root cause of their opinions or comments isn’t about you — it’s about them. Side note: it’s rather selfish to think that everything is about us all the time.

So, any moment you spend trying to do things to impress people that are more worried about themselves than you is a moment wasted. The only person that truly cares about you is you and you can’t spend another day sacrificing your happiness for the approval and acceptance of others.

They really don’t care.