“Don’t let the opinions of the average man sway you.
Dream and he thinks you’re crazy.
Succeed and he thinks you’re lucky.
Acquire wealth and he thinks you’re greedy.
He simply doesn’t understand.”
— Robert Allen
It was close to a decade ago that I unintentionally dropped all thinking about what others think of me. Whether I’m thought of as crazy, lucky, greedy, or downright arrogant simply doesn’t occupy my thinking anymore.
I could be all or none of the above in some people’s eyes. And that’s completely okay with me. Literally. One way or another, these ideas haven’t occupied my thinking for literally years.
The way I now see it, the more our thinking is preoccupied by what others think of us, the more we waste mental energy thinking of ourselves. In other words: the more ego-attachments we have and the more drama we invite.
The way to drop all of this insecure, noisy thinking about how good we are in other people’s eyes, is not through force or discipline or a rigorous meditation practice.
At least, that’s not how I got there.
The way to drop it isn’t to entertain all of our ideas about ourselves… and other people’s ideas about us… and our ideas about their ideas about us…
…As you can see, this just leads to more and more unnecessary, self-indulgent thinking about ‘me’.
The way to drop it is to delve deeply into the one absolute certainty of the human experience – the Psychological Reality that feeling always comes from thought in the moment.
By realising the truth of this fact, we drop the illusion of the opposite: that we might feel something else.
In other words, in realising the Psychological Reality, we automatically drop the illusion that:
- We might feel bad if someone has a negative opinion about us
- They might talk bad about us and convince others to hold similar negative opinions about us, and their subsequent treatment of us might make us feel bad
- We have to give a lot of thought to what others think of us, in order to make them like us
- How much we’re liked has anything to do with how we feel
- We need to take what others say about us to our face and behind our backs really seriously because our ‘dignity’ or ‘honour’ somehow depends on it
- We need to type inordinate amounts of text onto a social media app to make sure our ‘friends’ who are following the conversation realise that we’re right, we’re wise, we’re intelligent and all the while we’re funny and like-able. (Which will later be measured by a thumbs up or heart reaction).
Anyone holding onto any of the illusory trains of thought above is going to have a lot on their mind. In fact they may have so much on their mind, that they’ll likely have very little time and space to be aware of Allah’s infinite, beautiful, constant presence.
If you’ve spent more than about 60 seconds in the last week being preoccupied with what someone else thinks of you, it’s time for a change.
In fact, it could be that Allah, the Most Loving Guide, brought you to read this post to gently guide you away from these self-harming trains of thought.
Flicking “The Psychological Switch” is kind of like hitting the ‘mute’ button on a life-time of the unhelpful, insecure thinking that may have been zapping your energy and blocking your success.
The profound inner-peace you’ll experience when all that noise quiets down speaks for itself.
Go here to ‘mute’ your ego:
