[BlueCrustacean]

I hear this so often that it has lost all meaning- “Don’t give a crap what others think of you.” People never explain convincingly why this is good advice.

My main obstacle to accepting this belief is that, as humans, we are social animals, and we depend on each other for survival. Very few of us are completely self-sufficient, if any really. In our world, people have to like you enough to pay you to do a job, or to buy your stuff if you have a business. If no one wants anything to do with you and doesn’t want to pay you, you starve and die. So it feels like we LITERALLY live or die depending on others’ opinions of us. We all need support, and in order to get that support, we need people to like us.

I’m worried that if I REALLY stop caring what others think and become truly myself, EVERYONE will hate me passionately and not want anything to do with me, and I’ll starve to death alone in a gutter somewhere. I just can’t imagine anyone accepting me for who I truly am, even if I’ve never done anything in my life that horrible to begin with. Mostly I’m just an artist who wants to be fully creative and exploratory and reach my own infinite potential. I think I’m worried I sound narcissistic and that will scare people off.

I have this fear that if I really stopped giving a crap, I would lose control and do horrible things to people, as if I was on drugs and acted purely on impulses. I would be sexually explicit in public, naked wherever, killing people, etc etc, with no fear of what other people think to stop me from being crazy and destructive.

Maybe it sounds illogical, but my emotions don’t care. I still feel strongly that way. How do I know I’ll be okay if I become truly myself and express that to people? Will they hate me?

You are right - what people think of you is important. But sometimes, the anxiety can be deliberating, when you end up walking on eggshells in life just because of the constant thought of what people think of you. It becomes a problem when the thought is constant.

Don't worry about what people think of you. What you need to worry about most is yourself (general sentence, not personal). Worry about your wants and needs first. Then when you're more fulfilled, you can start caring about what people think of you. But in order to care about what people think of you, you need to think about what you want people to think of you, and act accordingly to show them what you want them to think of you

[divine1966]

Well if you start killing people or do sexually explicit things in public, people wouldn’t look at you favorably, but why do you consider doing such things? Do you not kill others only because you care what others think? Arent there other reasons to not behave in certain manner?

[MickeyCheeky]

When people say that, they usually mean that you need to be yourself, and not to "fake it" just to please others. So if you're a good person I don't think there's anything to worry about...

[mote.of.soul]

@BlueCrustacean:

Yeah, I agree with what you're saying but it's one of those sayings that isn't meant to be taken literally. What people really mean when they say “don’t give a crap what others think of you” is "don't allow peoples negative opinions about you effect you." Which is pretty good advice.

I don't care what people think of me. What that means is that I don't carry their opinion of me to bed every night and dwell on it. I run a successful business, have amazing kids, volunteer, pole dance, have friends, run my home, etc. I sleep well at night because I have stayed true to my own values.

Not caring what other people think doesn't mean you don't care about what you think of yourself. It's just very freeing.

[Macd123]

If they’re not one of the very few people that are going to be there for you in a crisis then I wouldn’t worry too much about it......

[eskielover]

I divide people in my life, those whose opinions & thoughts & valyes I respect & can learn from & those I don't (usually those who have hurt me in some way)

I care aboyt those who I respect. I don't make my life miserable from what they think but I when I can learn something from it great. Others I hear but usually just let their thoughts just leave me (teflon mind..a DBT term).

It is important as some people's thoughts are good for correcting out direction in lufe like a rudder on a boat. It we never make corrections based on respected opinions we could drift far out tovsea withoyt even knowing it.

Pick from those whose thoughts you respect even if they differ from your & analyze if thete is anything of value they have to offer through the thought they offer

[LadyShadow]

People have made some awesome statements on this thread, and I think the ones that stuck with me the most was:

“Don’t give a crap what others think of you” is "don't allow peoples negative opinions about you effect you." (written by mote.by.soul)

"Not caring what other people think doesn't mean you don't care about what you think of yourself." (written by SadGirl)

Also, having self-control and being a decent person in society has nothing to do with caring with others think, but more so you are not a danger to others or yourself. You're right, ultimately you do NEED people because human beings are natutally social beings, and you never know, there are MANY creative artists in the world, (I consider myself one too), so being proud of your talent and wanting to show it off and praising it isn't being narcassisitc, not one bit, so you may end up finding a group of people who not only appreciate you, but welcome you with open arms.

We are all ridiculously weird, and fantastically insane, my friend.

[Erebos]

There are different parts of us.
My working persona, it is of course important that people think I am professional and capable, it helps if they like me but not essential.
personally/privately I am quite extreme on the antisocial scale. I have maybe 3 or 4 friends , 2 of which live hundreds of miles away.
I have zero inclination towards having people like me, I certainly don't censors myself for the sake of others, nor do I seek out the opinions of people I don't care about.

I have managed to negotiate my life thus far in this manner without it being detrimental to my well being. I might even suggest the fewer people clogging up my private life the easier it has been to get by.

There are other relationships we go thru, where being polite and courteous gets us further, does it mean I care what they think...not really, I simply want to make interactions a brief and painless as possible.

I guess it all comes down to perspective.
What you feel you need, or might miss without the interactions of others.?

Just an alternative perspective.😉

Can I ask, what you mean, when you said "my emotions don't care" ?

[Entity06]

Personally I do think that what people think of you matters. It's just that we tend to take and give the advice of "don't care what anyone else thinks" too literally. To me it's not that it doesn't matter what others think, because it does, it's about being able to discern between the opinions that matter and those that don't.

For ex, let's say you have person A and person B and each has an opinion of you. Person A has known you for years, is a relatively non prejudiced, open minded, empathetic, well meaning person. Person B has known you for less time or barely knows you, is more conservative and prejudiced and there's reason to suspect they don't care that much about your well being. Whose opinion is of more empirical value, more likely to be based in an unprejudiced, well informed judgement and assessment of you?

That's how I see it. If well meaning people who are relatively unbiased by false societal norms(like sexist, homophobic, binary beliefs) have an opinion of you that is also relatively well informed through some degree of proximity and knowledge of your situation(for ex of what depression and other mental illness is), we should consider what they have to say, it does matter, they might have a point. On the other hand, if it's some random bully, some prejudiced person in a prejudiced society, if it's someone who doesn't know us at all really or never tried to, their opinion may be valid for them but it's not based on much and it's too heavily biased by external factors, stereotyping and so on.

So basically I think that there's some truth in the saying but it should be more like saying one should learn to not take every opinion, good or bad, to heart and first consider how well informed and unbiased that opinion is.

It's even a bit dangerous to lead your life without caring what others think. First of all, whether you emotionally care what others think or not, unless you are financially completely self sufficient without the need to interact with anyone else as part of your work or business, how others perceive you does make a difference and it will make a difference and often it can be severely biased and unfair whether you care or not. Secondly, I do think we need feedback from others, to calibrate our own behavior and way of thinking cause we can't see ourselves from the outside and our own emotions make us biased in a way that can alter the way we perceive ourselves and our interaction. Like, for ex, someone who is socially anxious can feel like they're ignored or not liked in any social situation and that is often exaggerated. Or you can just not realize that you've been hurtful or wrong about something or some interaction. Feedback is good.

Another example is ho you shouldn't "care" what sexists, homophobes, racists or xenophobes think, you're not less of a person, you're not wrong or ugly or whatever and you shouldn't hide or feel any less human and valid. That's very true but at the same time we can't ignore the fact that people outside the norms, whether they care or not, face negative consequences, more or less, depending on the local culture. So, someone can be out and proud and still get denied a job for being gay or trans, or even worse they can be physically assaulted and ostracized in ways they can't control and that do affect their lives in quantifiable ways. Of course it matters how people perceive you.

In my opinion, by saying that it should absolutely not matter what others think, we're also taking the blame away from those who discriminate and act in an insensitive way. It's like victim blaming because freedom of expression doesn't mean freedom to hurt other people, it doesn't mean we should be free to discriminate and hurt others because that actually takes freedom away from people subjected to that discrimination.

In fact, generally speaking, what people think of other people, of places, foods, objects, etc does matter and it serves a purpose because we as humans learn and evolve by learning from each other, by taking in information others have uncovered and building on it, we adapt by example and we make better things to improve our quality of life by observing people's needs and wants and how things affect them.

[Ltmech]

I personally don't much care what people think of me because i'm me and that's what matters to me. other people consider me weird or anti-social but its kinda true but i don't really personally care much about what other people think and i know that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and that's great we are social creatures and often do rely on others but not everyone has to like us... not everyone will like us... but it doesn't mean that there aren't some people that do. i mean... if they really don't have a specific reason to hate you then most people tend to stay neutral in the matter and its amazing how it happens... ever since i was in fifth grade i had been ridiculed and bullied by the majority of the kids there and after that year it honestly did haunt me for the rest of the time in middle school but after that i began to care less about what people said because i never let it get to me and i didn't show that they even hurt me or upset me but bottling up my emotions didn't help so i wrote down my problems and sometimes look back on them to think about how much better i have it now... i'm not saying you have to not care you can if you want most people couldn't care less and i'm saying this trying to show you that caring and not caring both have their ups and downs. you don't have to be what people want you to be and it's wrong when they try to bend people to their own criteria and make them into the image that THEY like. you can have different interests and have different hobbies but that doesn't make you a freak it makes you yourself as an individual. i know from experience that bottling up anger and sadness leads to depression and that's where i am now... stuck in some stupid rut that is this dark hole in my heart and i'm trying to fix it but since i was never able to properly socialize as a child and now i'm never really good in social events or anything like meetups or face to face conversation's and that caused me to be anti-social and introverty and even though i sometimes talk i'm more than happy being quiet because it doesn't make much difference to me... and i know i may be getting a little off track here... but i'm just saying you should do what you think is best... conscious or not most of the people who make fun of you now you probably won't remember 10-15 years from now and that's the beauty of it. if you follow what you believe is right then it shouldn't matter how other people feel about it. its what makes you special and different from everyone. i've got to go for now but just... do whatever you think is right.