Nobody knows you, so who cares what they think?

We all live on the same planet.

Or at least we seem to do.

But we also live in completely different worlds, all the time.

All of us.

Our worlds are created meticulously and individually, in the moment, right now, and built from preferences, ideas, tastes, beliefs, likes, and dislikes.

And our experiences can be so very, very far apart.

Whatever I truly believe to be breathtakingly beautiful, you can perceive to be bland and ugly.

Whatever I see as truth, you might consider being fake and unreal.

What I love to listen to can hurt your ears.

What I can look forward to, you can anticipate in deep anxiety.

And what I crave and would happily die for, might be totally uninteresting and boring to you.

We know this, we accept it.

‘We are just different people.’

But we don’t really use it to our advantage.

We don’t take it for a spin and use it to live a life that is less stressed out and way more liberated.

We STILL believe we are always right.

We are STILL convinced we are living in the same world.

One of the most painful examples of how we don’t realize that everything in life is purely about perception, is when it comes to other people’s opinions about us.

We simply don’t realize that people only ever see their very personal perception, their story.

Their individual creation.

Their idea of the world.

And of you.

This world we seem to live in is a totally subjective experience and belongs to the person, and only to the person.

That’s why it really doesn’t matter what people think and say about you.

Because if they don’t like or appreciate you, they simply don’t like their idea about you.

If nobody out there is capable of seeing the real world, if everything we can ever experience is nothing but a subjective and utterly individual interpretation, would it be really possible for someone else to know who you are?

What we hate is nothing but our image of something, our idea.

Our opinions are never, ever objective assessments, not even close, because we are utterly incapable of being neutral.

We simply project and mistake the projection for reality.

And here’s another thing: people don’t even deliberately think what they think.

If you go for a walk in the city, every judgment, every idea, every opinion, is automatically created, automatically arising.

You can’t help it.

You don’t go around criticizing everything because you really want to.

It’s a spontaneous happening.

It’s what minds do, all the time, and you couldn’t stop it even if you want to.

So if you take into account our totally skewed idea of the world AND the purely habitual arising of thoughts, who gives a shit about the content?

It doesn’t mean anything.

It’s completely personal and inaccurate.

Now that’s what I call a big fucking relief!

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(Photo by @bonteque, for Unsplash)