I might add that there are big differences between constructive criticism and directed negativity/a desire to limit someone, or make them feel less than. The difference is in intent, and the effects on the recipient are different. One is to help, and the other is to keep someone down.
Jim
Yeah, people do actually need to blend into society in the good ways while still being themselves.
Being good to others is important and treating people as you would want to be treated is a good start.
But to focus all of ones attention and acting only on what others think or may think is an endless black hole of doom.
In short the more someone actually cares about what others think the worse off they really are.
So if I am not married to them, they aren't a family member, or they aren't paying my bills I do not care what they think beyond just being a part of society and what I said above.
I might add that there are big differences between constructive criticism and directed negativity/a desire to limit someone, or make them feel less than. The difference is in intent, and the effects on the recipient are different. One is to help, and the other is to keep someone down.
Jim
Yeah, people do actually need to blend into society in the good ways while still being themselves.
Being good to others is important and treating people as you would want to be treated is a good start.
But to focus all of ones attention and acting only on what others think or may think is an endless black hole of doom.
In short the more someone actually cares about what others think the worse off they really are.
So if I am not married to them, they aren't a family member, or they aren't paying my bills I do not care what they think beyond just being a part of society and what I said above.
I agree, Jim.
I suffered for decades from what I now know to have been low-grade depression. Of course, I was able to function normally (I still had good times, too), but it was always there in the background, and sometimes front and center. I never sought treatment and never got medication for it, but I know it was depression. It’s gone now, but it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like it was here one day and gone the next. It was a gradual process that took years and a big change in my own ways of thinking, until at some point I realized that I hadn’t been depressed in a long time. There are other things that helped tremendously that I won’t go into. Nowadays, I’m further away from being depressed than I ever could have imagined I ever would be.
I might add that there are big differences between constructive criticism and directed negativity/a desire to limit someone, or make them feel less than. The difference is in intent, and the effects on the recipient are different. One is to help, and the other is to keep someone down.
Jim
Yeah, people do actually need to blend into society in the good ways while still being themselves.
Being good to others is important and treating people as you would want to be treated is a good start.
But to focus all of ones attention and acting only on what others think or may think is an endless black hole of doom.
In short the more someone actually cares about what others think the worse off they really are.
So if I am not married to them, they aren't a family member, or they aren't paying my bills I do not care what they think beyond just being a part of society and what I said above.
I agree, Jim.
I suffered for decades from what I now know to have been low-grade depression. Of course, I was able to function normally, but it was always there in the background, and sometimes front and center. I never sought treatment and never got medication for it, but I know it was depression. It’s gone now, but it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like it was here one day and gone the next. It was a gradual process that took years and a big change in my own ways of thinking, until at some point I realized that I hadn’t been depressed in a long time. There are other things that helped tremendously that I won’t go into. Nowadays, I’m further away from being depressed than I ever could have imagined I ever would be.
Jim
Jim,
My hats off to you for taking back control. :cool:
I am sure it wasn't easy and it took a lot of work.
I think it might help "some" people to really think about the fact the world will go on after they are gone.
Other than a handful of close friends and relatives at the most they will not even be in anyone's thoughts after a very short period of time.
That's unless they are a famous person and or had a building named after them.
But for the vast majority they will be forgotten so living ones life based on what others may think or not is wasted energy and causes undue stress that isn't needed for a healthy life. Our time is short here on Earth in the end so living ones life based on what others think is a waste of time that we really don't have.
Yeah, we can choose to live a life of constant worry over whether or not we are good enough or meet with everyone’s approval. Or we can live the life that our inner voice prompts us to, as best we can, and not stuck within the limited parameters many people’s thoughts and beliefs would confine us to. As long as we handle our responsibilities and live our lives without harming others (unless, of course, in self-defense).
There are even a couple of people within my own family whose opinions I couldn’t care less about. We love each other, but some of their opinions, including a few about me, are way off-base and not even worth taking the time to clarify them on.
After we are gone, the sun will still rise and set, and life will go on.
Yeah, we can choose to live a life of constant worry over whether or not we are good enough or meet with everyone’s approval. Or we can live the life we were meant to, as best we can, and not by the limited parameters many people’s thoughts and beliefs would confine us to. As long as we handle our responsibilities and live our lives without harming others (unless, of course, in self-defense).
There are even a couple of people within my own family whose opinions I couldn’t care less about. We love each other, but some of their opinions, including a few about me, are way off-base and not even worth taking the time to clarify them on.
After we are gone, the sun will still rise and set, and life will go on.
Jim
Jim,
I agree.
I do believe that if a person can have a positive effect on even just one other persons life while they are here it's a good thing. :)
Families can be complicated, I agree there. LOL :D
I’m interested in how things work, how things are made, why things are as they are, and why they are not.
Other people’s thoughts are often fundamental to those, so yes.
I’m also interested in other people’s interesting life experiences. These often inform and explain their opinions, and why they do what they do - all of which may well be different from my experiences, opinions and actions.
It’s interesting how many interpret the question as “What other people think about ME”. I’m old enough to realise that most people don’t.
A more interesting question is usually “Why do other people want me to think that?”
Someone once told me “self praise is no recommendation”. For this reason I value what others think in certain situations. It doesn’t matter if I think I am good at my job, it matters if my coworkers think that I am. It doesn’t matter if I think I am a good husband, father and son but it does matter if my family thinks I am. It doesn’t matter if I think I am a good friend, it only matters if my friends think I am a good friend. Others can help by offering you honest self reflection.
You can have a healthy concern for what others think of you and still maintain a sense of self as well as your individuality. Those things are not mutually exclusive. If anything I am a contrarian and feel compelled to go against the grain in most areas of my life. I am far from a conformist and share very few interests with mainstream society. I also don’t have a Facebook page and reject social media. I almost never watch TV and have never really liked it. If I was single I wouldn’t own a tv. My political, religious and philosophical views also put me in a rather small group. It may all stem from being an only child. I march to the beat of my own drum.
In the end, like all things in life, this is about finding a healthy balance. You want to care what certain people think about you but not so much that you are not yourself. Ideally you can use what others think of you to be a better version of yourself.
-Darby
sal wrote:Knife afi's are pretty far out, steel junky's more so, but "edge junky's" are just nuts. :p
SpyderEdgeForever wrote:
Also, do you think a kangaroo would eat a bowl of spagetti with sauce if someone offered it to them?
Was only talking to a mate fishing the other day about what people think nowadays and I explained my 3 types of people in the world to him
Group 1) The same spaceship same planet. These are the people that are most like yourself in values and respect
Group 2) The same planet different space ship. These are people same ilk but usually younger or different cultures but general same values and respect as yourself.
Group 3) The different planet different spaceship. These are the ones that don’t even know we exist, the rude self absorbed ones that cut you off in traffic, the ones that won’t line up for anything without complaining and think they have a right to be in front of every line. (They are the ones that don’t last long here)
So group 1 and 2 I care what they think of my actions and doings outside my front gate. Group 3 I don’t care what they think
Im a vegetarian as technically cows are made of grass and water.
It’s interesting how many interpret the question as “What other people think about ME”. I’m old enough to realise that most people don’t.
This is a good point, and one of the thoughts I have behind limiting ourselves and our own potentials because of “What we think people might think.” Because truthfully, for the most part, people aren’t thinking about “me” (us). Unless, of course, one is married with a family, or they are a famous person who is in the spotlight. Otherwise, most of it’s all in our own heads. “I really want to be a (*name the occupation or interest*), but people will think I’m crazy/stupid/dreaming; not tall/attractive/intelligent/talented/disciplined enough (*take your pick*).”
As a child, Albert Einstein was considered slow-minded and sub-normal, among other things. If he had allowed those labels others had given him to take root in his mind and define him, he never would have become what he did. That’s an extreme example, but no different from the negative judgments or other discouragements people dismissively cast upon others all the time.
Both positivity and negativity can have far-reaching effects. To risk becoming philosophical about it, imagine flicking a pebble into a pond. That little pebble may be long forgotten, but the ripples spread out far and wide. And those ripples can return to the point of origin, too. Sometimes, just a little encouragement to someone who needs it can have lasting positive effects that benefit not only the recipient of that encouragement, but potentially all those whose lives they touch, and on and on down the line. And of course, the opposite is also true.
Jim
Last edited by James Y on Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:49 am, edited 13 times in total.
It depends a lot on how you were raised and what values were instilled into you. I see people doing things everyday that I wouldn't be caught dead doing because to me they look like absolute morons and I'd be embarrassed to look like they do. My mother was a very strong person and she didn't take crap from anyone and she definitely did her own thing, and that attitude definitely influenced me growing up. At the same time she was also a good person and believed in being respectful and being a good person so it wasn't like she had a chip on her shoulder.
I was a bit of an outcast when I was a kid because of this, I went to a very county/redneck school and had long hair and listened to heavy metal, I didn't make many friends and got into a fair share of fights because I was different, but I wasn't going to let that change me so in those sorts of ways I never gave a darn about what people thought of me, and the more crap I got for being different just fueled my urge to be like those people.
At the same time, I'm something of an introvert. I don't want or desire the sort of attention that some people who are "different" seem to want. I didn't dress different TO BE different, that was just what felt comfortable to me and what I liked. There's a fine line between self expression and being an individual, and trying to stick out for shock effect or to deliberately annoy other people. Some people get tattoos because they think they look cool, I get them for the artist side of it but there are some people who will always see tattoos as being trashy.
Anyway to more directly answer the question, I don't give a crap but I also have some amount of standards installed so even my "zero craps given" is probably fairly tame compared to some people these days. I'm sure to some people the way I look and dress and such is still offensive and I'm sure I still stick out like a sore thumb. I will say, the older I get the less I care..that's for sure.
I'm retired, so no need to worry what colleagues, superiors, or customers think. Own my own home and, aside from my dog (who takes offense every time I walk out the door without him), live alone, so no landlord or family to offend. Beyond that, with the exception of groups I hold in contempt, I don't go out of my way to give offense but never allow the possibility that someone will take offense control my words or actions.
Not sure that what I'm about to share is apropos with this thread but I'm sure it's not too far off anyway. There are a lot of young people where I'm living and for the most part I really get along with them and have shared some good times with them. In a good sense I've also been amazed at how many of the older 1970s/1980s rock groups that I loved growing up that they also love. I asked a few of them why they were wearing Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull T-Shirts and they told me that the older groups had most of the talent and that they wished they would have grown up during my young adult years. All of that we agree on and we've had many stimulating conversations about past pop culture.
However our agreement and our fellowship seems to end there. You wouldn't believe the outright hostile ridicule I take from those same younger people because I choose not to be addicted to these abominable cell phones that seem to occupy and rule at least 90% of their lives. They have said so many caustic and disrespectful things to me because I choose NOT to have my ear glued to that electronic nightmare we call the cell phone :rolleyes: . I only use a phone basically for a "PHONE" and not a device to rule my life by. Is our society now ruled by some sort of high tech mass mind control??? It would seem so when it comes to the worship of these outrageous cell phones that most of these young people seem to center their very lives around.
My main point in all of this is>> "You Really Can't Be Yourself In This Present Age">> at least not without horrendous disrespectful, unjust ridicule it doesn't seem like it to me >> or do I deserve this disrespect and degrading treatment :confused: ??? :confused: There seems to be no tolerance for much of anything these days>> especially if you are not in tune with this sickening mainstream narrative that most young people are living by. This is mind control that Hitler and Mao would have salivated for :eek: GOD help us
As a businesss owner with many long term business clients it was very important what was thought of me and our operation. A great deal of mutual trust and reputation was involved. I guess the jist of this is that I've always liked people and in turn I like to be liked as well.
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I only use a phone basically for a "PHONE" and not a device to rule my life by. Is our society now ruled by some sort of high tech mass mind control???
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"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."
Winston Churchill, Speech at Harvard University, September 6, 1943.
Regarding something I mentioned earlier, about allowing ourselves to be influenced (in a negative way, as opposed to a positive way) by “What we THINK other people might think,” I’ll go out on a limb and share something I’ve never revealed before.
As a kid, I was outgoing enough around friends, but extremely shy around girls. To the point that I never expressed any interest in girls in my same grade; they always had to be a grade or two above me (one or two years older).
Why? Because in 7th or 8th grade, I once overheard maybe two or three girls during a coed gym class talking about which boys were “hot” and which were “duds.” Needless to say, my name came up in the “duds” list, lol. They were giggling when listing out the duds. For whatever reason, overhearing that meaningless little conversation, which should have meant nothing, had a profound effect on me, to the point that I thought all girls my age thought the same way. Therefore, I only ever approached older girls I was attracted to, thinking that in case they scorned me or gossiped about it later, they would graduate and move on sooner, and I wouldn’t be in the awkward situation of being in the same graduating class as them. The expected scorn and gossip never happened; all of the older girls I approached had been nice girls and cool about it. Which reinforced my avoidance of the ones in my own grade. Even when I began dating after high school, the women were always older (anywhere from one to three years older).
I ended up missing out on a lot during my junior high and high school years because of what I THOUGHT others MIGHT think. This all happened back in the ‘70s/beginning of the ‘80s. In more recent years, my older brother (who is well-known locally by many people, who also know I’m his brother) has encountered former female classmates of mine who told him to tell me they always remembered me; that they had always liked me and thought I was “cute” and “sweet” but quiet, and to say hi. Most are ones I never would have suspected even noticed me, much less remembered me. My brother has told me about several different such encounters, along with their names, now and then over the years. Were they just being polite? Maybe. Could time have changed their perceptions of me? Perhaps. But I’ll never know, because as a kid, I had allowed my self-esteem to take a nosedive because of what I THOUGHT girls my age thought of me because of a meaningless conversation I overheard one time between two or three girls. Who does that? Well, in my case, an overly-sensitive, self-conscious kid who cared too much about what other people thought or *might have thought* about him. This is only one example of the negative side of caring about what people think or might think.
As a kid, I was outgoing enough around friends, but extremely shy around girls. To the point that I never expressed any interest in girls in my same grade; they always had to be a grade or two above me (one or two years older).
In High School, during lunch, I use to sit with the hockey players because that was my team sport. I grew up in a middle income family and attended a high school with similar kids. I asked out one of the swim team athletes sisters. That was a mistake, but you certainly get to know what people thought of you. She said NO, and the reason why was because our table was singled out as misogynistic! This was the late 70's mind you, and I was floored. There was maybe one guy at the table who carried on about women but it was a jock table, and we talked about sports all day. I cannot recall talking about girls in H.S. while at H.S. It just didn't happen.
In any case. I then did not try to date anyone in my H.S. Ever.
I dated girls from the wealthiest schools within a 20 minute drive! I also skateboarded and those kids had the skate board ramps!!!! Hahahahahaha! And that is how I met my dates, quite by accident, but that is what happened.
I drove all over the county with friends looking for skateboard ramps!
In High School, during lunch, I use to sit with the hockey players because that was my team sport. I grew up in a middle income family and attended a high school with similar kids. I asked out one of the swim team athletes sisters. That was a mistake, but you certainly get to know what people thought of you. She said NO, and the reason why was because our table was singled out as misogynistic! This was the late 70's mind you, and I was floored. There was maybe one guy at the table who carried on about women but it was a jock table, and we talked about sports all day. I cannot recall talking about girls in H.S. while at H.S. It just didn't happen.
In any case. I then did not try to date anyone in my H.S. Ever.
I dated girls from the wealthiest schools within a 20 minute drive! I also skateboarded and those kids had the skate board ramps!!!! Hahahahahaha! And that is how I met my dates, quite by accident, but that is what happened.
I drove all over the county with friends looking for skateboard ramps!
>> or do I deserve this disrespect and degrading treatment :confused: ??? :confused: There seems to be no tolerance for much of anything these days>> especially if you are not in tune with this sickening mainstream narrative that most young people are living by. 