What other people think

April 4, 2023

In the 2000s there was a surge of ex-people-pleasers who touted the phrase "stop caring about what other people think about you".

But this is misguided, because it insinuates that the only way you can be happy is to have complete disregard for others.

The problem was never caring about others and their thoughts. The problem is with our conceptual interpretations and beliefs. And it points at the funny problem that we don't actually know what other people think.

So unless you rephrase this as "don't care about what other people say about you", you're actually stuck with a phrase insinuating that you want to stop caring about what you believe other people might think about you.