Tuesday July 5th

In this society, we are consumed by the idea that we have to live up to people’s standards and what they think of you. Part of the process of prioritising yourself and working on the relationship you have with yourself (because at the end of the day the only person you’re stuck with your entire life is you) is letting go of these false beliefs and start living life the way you want to, regardless of societal standards.

It’s like the typical analogy of the gym. Every single person in the gym thinks that everyone else is looking at them, judging them, laughing at them. If you go to the gym, do you ever feel like this? Yes. Perhaps you go over to a new machine. You look around and see if nobody is watching, yet still believe that everyone will turn and stare at you as soon as you start using it. Do I have sweat patches? Oh god, you can see my pant line! That girl is staring at me and judging me. These are all adages we have said in our heads. Then comes the dichotomy that if everyone is too worried about what other people are thinking of them, how on earth can everyone be judging everyone else?

What we can take from that is this: everyone is too self-obsessed to care. Ironic, isn’t it? We worry about living up to everyone else’s standards yet they don’t actually care!

Do what you want to do – it is too draining to live the way you think others think you should. This concept of living up to other people’s standards is only our own construction of how we think we should live. By living your own authentic and true life, you allow new things to come into your life (positive, good and happy things).

Trends. We lose money, we waste time. And for what? To keep up with friends, to fit in, to please others? We waste time doing things and buying things we don’t actually like. Be happy to see your friends choosing other things and living other lifestyles, but try not to feel as though you should have to keep up with them.

To wrap this up, I will summarise with this. People pleasing, to put it blatantly, is a waste of time. You will waste your entire life chasing trends and keeping up with the crowd just to “fit in” – and that’s not really a reward for that graft, is it? Live your own life and don’t care how other people see it, because they’re too busy living and navigating their own lives too 🙂