Years ago, David Letterman was lamenting to Dr. Phil about how Oprah must hate him, because she wouldn’t come on his show. Dr. Phil said it’s not a matter of her hating David Letterman – it’s just that he wasn’t on her radar. Dr. Phil said, “if you knew how little time Oprah spent thinking of your show, you’d be offended!”
The point being – we spend a lot of time worrying what other people are thinking about us. The reality is, people are not obsessing over everything you say and do, because they are spending the majority of time of thinking about themselves! Oh yes – we can gossip and briefly talk about other people – oftentimes to make ourselves feel better. But then we move on, because we are more concerned about what is going on in our own lives.
And that’s not completely bad. We can worry, we can agonize, we can obsess, we even change what we do or don’t do sometimes, because we are worried about what other people might think. It is a lot of wasted time and energy, when more than likely they are not thinking about us or at the very least, have moved on to other things. Why do we care so much what other people think? The dirty little secret is we are all little insecure. Let’s stop that.
I’m not talking about becoming inwardly focused or not heeding advice of people who genuinely care about, but often times we project and worry what other people – especially people who might not be really invested in our lives – think so much that it paralyzes us.
So our challenge is this – if you find yourself worrying about what you think other people are thinking about you – ask yourself why? If there is nothing to it – stop worrying about it and move forward.
**Eric has his Masters in Counseling and when not on the radio he works as a private practice counselor**
Photo Credit: Getty Images/Deagreez
