Reputation and What do Others Think about You? ( THE CONCLUSION)

  Yes, what people say can serve as a safety check towards your relationship with them but it also serves as a poison that kills you slowly. You lose your individuality in it.
  How do you lose your individuality? You do what they do because you want acceptance even if you don’t agree with it. You do it every time. It becomes your pocket bible.  Have you ever stood before your mirror trying on a dress, you love it and feel so comfortable in it but you tell yourself "people will point at me when I walk down the road. They’d think the style is bizarre" then you pull the dress off for another.
 Let me give you another scenario. You have friends that love partying and staying out late. You enjoy staying home, curled up on your couch with a bowl of potato chips on your lap and watch a movie but you don’t. You keep going out with them every night because you don’t want them to judge you.
You want to be liked. Slowly, your sense of individuality fades away. You never do what you really love because you think they’d laugh at you and call you names.

  This brings me to my next point. Be selfish and do what makes you happy. When you came into this world, you came alone. You have just one life to live and not two. If you don’t do what makes you happy now when will you do it? I am not saying you should go around on a killing spree or hurt people.  It sounds very selfish thinking about you alone but it is important. It’s from your ability to think about you and do what you love that you can accommodate others.   There are lots of old people who have regrets. If you listen to them talk about the past, you’d notice the wistfulness in their eyes. They had missed out on things that made them happy and fulfilled because they wanted to fit in. Now they are old it’s too late. They realise they should never had cared about what people said and thought.
That was how this article came alive. I met a jovial, pretty old woman in a bus on my way from one part of the country to another. We got talking.  She had this joie de vivre that I liked so much and I told her. What she said to me made me think long and hard after the journey ended.

 "I envy your youthfulness. I made so many mistakes when I was young that if I had known what I know now, I would never have made them."
 I prodded her on to explain what she meant.
"I let my parents and what people would say rule me.  I was very intelligent and would have loved to read Theatre arts or Drama whatever it is they call it today but my parents said no. They wanted me to be a doctor. I hated medical school with every fibre of my being but unfortunately, I always passed. If I had known I would have rebelled and flunked it, maybe I would have been forced to withdraw and my parents would have let me be. Not just that. I had this boy I was madly in love with then. Dapo(not real name) was a gentleman and he loved me to bits. I brought him home to my parents but all they screamed was that he was a Yoruba man. They married me off to a friend’s son. I never had peace in that marriage. I became his punching bag and when I ran home to complain, my parents would tell me what people would think about me getting separated from my husband. I stayed on, I miscarried twice. It was a living hell. He later ran off with another woman. My children are the only good thing that came out of it. What I have come to realise is, make yourself happy and never listen to people. They would always talk no matter what you do. You have one life, so live it."
  Our conversation made me reflect. Believe me, I don’t want to end up old and filled with regrets, I don’t know about you.

  Make yourself happy but you have to know yourself first. That’s the only way to go about it. If you don’t know what works for you or have confidence in you, you’ll always ask yourself what people will think. Look around you, the most successful, strongest and happiest people you know did what others thought impossible. People laughed at them for starting it but they never listened to people, they forged ahead and today you and those same people celebrate them. You can never go far in life if you don’t get to know the most important person in the world, YOU. If you don’t love yourself and have no confidence in you, believe me people can sense it and that’s when their mouths open and you suffering from your low self esteem, begin to jump around to do their bidding so they’d accept you. The natural order of things is every man thinks about himself first. If you can’t love you, no one will. How you see yourself is what's important, with time others will see you that way.When you understand yourself and what makes you happy, you’d never settle for less.

   The above paragraph leads to the question, Who then should you care what they think? Well, not the whole world. Only the people that matter are important.  You should give slight thought to your family and friends in certain matters that affect your happiness and not all. Besides, your friends should be the more understanding of the lot and accept you the way you are. BE careful who you call friend and make friends with people that suit you and will always tell you the truth. The good thing is, advice is given but it’s your choice which you take. I said in certain situations because if you take up a job because mama and papa approve, will they follow you to work when you wake up every morning unhappy and help you with the work? You’d be the unhappy fella in the picture with a dead end job. Dead end because you hate it and you are in the wrong field. If it’s marriage, you will be the one living with that person for the rest of your life and not them. You could try sitting your parents down and explaining that because in a twisted way, they want the best for you and sometimes carry themselves and past regrets into helping you make your choice. They are only human.

  Do you really think people care what you do? No, they don’t! You wouldn’t believe this but people don’t. Remember the law of nature? Every man for himself.  Their thoughts are about themselves. We humans are selfish in nature. Fine, they might comment but they don’t dwell on it or on you. They move on to solve their own issues. You think people would stay in their houses and hold a discussion group on you every minute because you married a younger man or that you left your high paying job to start your own company ? Then you don’t understand people. Sometimes, they might even end up copying you. Let’s say you created a new hairstyle and everyone laughs and points at you asking what you were thinking. Give it a week and look around, they are carrying the hairstyle. Most people who judge and talk do so out of envy and then some because they feel your uneasiness. It’s just like the tabloids, they might carry a story about you for a week but when something new happens, they stop talking about you and your story becomes history. So, sometimes give it time. And remember, people won’t dwell on you .They never do because they have their own crosses to carry.

  Do you know you might be worried over nothing? You keep fretting and wondering what people would think in your mind while in reality, they never noticed and are not thinking about you in their minds. I was seated in a Lagos BRT bus beside a woman with a baby. My mind was faraway; I was almost late for an appointment. I had like a million things going through my mind. I noticed the woman kept turning to look at me.  Then she tapped me and said "Sorry I’m breastfeeding him beside you. I never do it outside but he’s been crying because he’s hungry." It was when she finished her speech that I realised she was breastfeeding her baby. I didn’t care but she felt and thought I did. She might have pulled her top and I wouldn’t have noticed. I had myself on my mind. Besides, she didn’t know me from jack so why would she care what I thought.

You can't control what people think about you. Why should you bother yourself. No matter what you do , they'd always talk. You can't make everyone like you. You can't force them to think lovely things about you. You can't be in their heads to put on a like switch so, relax.

  So, you see, you should be the only one that matters in your universe. What's your reputation but what they think about you through their prejudiced and myopic eyes. You don't need my approval or their approval to live yor life.Yes, it sounds selfish but you have one life to live so live it and don’t make your reputation and what humans like you would think about you & your guidance manual and bible.
  Don’t end up old and bitter filled with regrets. Cheers!


Thanks for reading my thoughts.