How Listening To Other’s Opinions Causes You Great Pain

Getting approval from others has a great price and consequences.

Regardless of what people say about not caring what others think about them, everyone cares on some level. Some tend to care more than others and some care very little. We live in a world where there are more people who care what others think about them. This is evident as many people have made important decisions in their personal lives based on how they think they would be perceived. These decisions have led some to regret their choices and resent the very same people they were trying to please. This is part of the bitter adult dynamic that goes on with people every day.

I remember when I graduated from high school, I was getting the full court press from family members about going to college. I didn’t want to go to college right away. I had no idea what I wanted to go to college for.

But my family didn’t care, they wanted me to be like them and everyone else, to go to college for the sake of saying I went to college.

As a lost and impressionable teenager, I caved and enrolled in college a few years later.

The college experiences didn’t last long. My intuition was telling me not to cave to my family but I did for the sake of their approval. Fast forward to an entire decade later, I paid for that rushed and forced decision to enroll in college. I was the one left with the debt of paying for college tuition and a college I didn’t want to attend.

This is an example of why allowing others’ opinions to influence your decisions can lead to pain. You may make decisions thinking you have someone else’s interests in mind but you are only harming yourself.

When the smoke clears, you will be the one left to pick up the pieces and deal with the consequences of your actions alone.

There are people who live ever ay painfully with regret from choices they made solely based on others’ opinions. Important rushed long-term commitments like getting married, taking a job, starting a family, or any other life-changing decision can be influenced simply for the sake of others’ approval.

You can’t make everyone happy. At some point in your life, you will have to make a tough choice to put yourself first by upsetting others. Yes, it will cost you their approval.

Which life could you live? The life of a resentful adult who made choices to please others with nothing to show for it or the life of someone who ruffled some feathers by putting themselves first but has a higher quality of life.

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