How Not Taking Anything Personally Transformed My Life

We spend a lot of time thinking about other people. What they think, say and do. I know I used to worry about the impression I left on others until I came to realize one simple fact:

The world doesn’t revolve around me.

That’s right. As difficult as it may be to digest, I am not standing on a pedestal above the rest of society. Yes, I am an individual, but I am not the only individual living and experiencing their own complicated life.

With that being said, I have come to understand that people’s reflections on me are not personal — meaning, they’re not meant to reflect me, but how they see me. Just as random and temporary my thoughts are of others, so are theirs of me. It has taken me a few years to grasp that people are too involved in responding to their own lives to be remarking mine for more than a few seconds — or minutes.

Roller-Coaster Perceptions

People’s opinions tend to change according to their moods. If we are to worry about everything someone has to comment on in a discouraging way, we may as well surrender to feeling lost every time they decide to change gear and introduce a different viewpoint. One moment they may be apprehensive of your future — notice how I say your, not theirs — and the next moment they are supportive because they started to react positively to their own life.

Individuals with a goal in life, especially content creators who decide to share this goal with others, will end up receiving reactions. I know I received mixed reactions when I decided to let go of what I had presumed as my destiny of studying a subject I had little interest in, and began pursuing the role of a writer.

I happened to notice that as soon as I faced hints of success, the people who had previously doubted my future began to support it — in fact, encourage it. Moral of the story is, please follow your, and none other than your vision for yourself. Others are too busy figuring out theirs.

Seeing What’s Not There

As imaginative creatures, us humans tend to picture something that may not exist. It is very easy for us to draw conclusions — in fact, many of us do it unconsciously. But there comes a time when it starts to affect the way we perceive everything — including situations that really have nothing to do with us.

Like the majority of people, if I didn’t get a call or text back on time, my mind would hallucinate the number of reasons that I didn’t, and most of them revolved around — you guessed it, me. When reality kicked in though, I realized that there may be other reasons bypassing my own self-limited view of the world that prevented people from answering; for instance, an emergency situation, or that they were simply having a bad day. Factors beyond any association with me.

A Multi-Opinionated World Isn’t A Bad Thing

Everyone is designed in their own unique way — packed with one-of-a-kind experiences and perspectives. And this is good, right? If we were to live in a world where people shared the exact same outlook on everything, it would not only be predictable, but boring; lifeless.

Not everyone is going to agree with you, but it doesn’t mean that you should implement their views in your own life. Whether they come from people you are close to or not, no one will know you as personally as you know yourself. So why should you take anything anyone else says personally?

The Takeaway

The way people see you is not how you are — it is how they see you from a point of view of their own life. You’re the stimulus — they’re the response. It is outside of your control, and so unworthy of your time and energy.

Once I started focusing on my own personal journey of life, I understood that everyone else is focusing on their own as well. Shifting my attention from the road ahead of me towards those of others did noting but distract me from seeing the value of my own. Each one of us has embarked on a unique journey, and we owe it our full focus.

Angelina Der Arakelian