Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No one ever said that not caring what others think automatically translates into acting badly. Interesting assumption!
Really, truly, and totally not caring what ANYONE thinks...is pretty much being a sociopath.
And sociopaths often do act badly.
I would never want to be in a relationship with someone who did not care what I think. That's like being viewed as a thing, not a person. How do you love someone if you literally don't ever care what they think?
Really, truly, and totally not caring what ANYONE thinks...is pretty much being a sociopath.
And sociopaths often do act badly.
I would never want to be in a relationship with someone who did not care what I think. That's like being viewed as a thing, not a person. How do you love someone if you literally don't ever care what they think?
I disagree (and of course we have to define what it means to "not care what people think" to have a logical conversation about it). You can be led by your value system, which can be better than 99.9% of the value systems on the planet, and "not care what people think." Do you think Jesus twisted himself into a pretzel to please people? If he had, he wouldn't have been crucified!
I disagree (and of course we have to define what it means to "not care what people think" to have a logical conversation about it). You can be led by your value system, which can be better than 99.9% of the value systems on the planet, and "not care what people think." Do you think Jesus twisted himself into a pretzel to please people? If he had, he wouldn't have been crucified!
So you care what Jesus thought? Or your authorities that raised you to believe in religious values?
I am taking this at literal face value. I'm not saying care what people think as in twist yourself into a pretzel to please people. I'm saying have any interest or investment in the thoughts and feelings of other humans, past or present, in your life, particularly to the extent that you modify your behavior in any way out of consideration for another person's thoughts or feelings.
So if I didn't care what my boyfriend thought, I might not bother to give him anything for his Birthday, whether he got me anything for mine or not. I would say no to intimacy literally every time I am tired or don't feel like it, I would not bother with basic manners or courtesies in or out of my home. Why be nice? What other people think doesn't matter.
I would dress in sweats to my office job, because I don't care what anyone thinks. Oh, except there are rules. So I guess we can point at rules laid down by authority, and divorce that from the opinions of the human beings who set them up in the first place?
Actually you know what? This is FASCINATING. I am seeing two kinds of people emerge in this and other threads. Those who respect rules and laws and authority such as religion, and those who respect other people and social convention, and each kind seems to craft their own values accordingly.
Maybe this explains how people can claim to be decent religious folk but still be so cruel and obnoxious to others.
If you care too much about what others think of you, then you will drive yourself crazy trying to please everyone. And there's a good chance you'll please no one, at the end of the day, least of all yourself.
If you don't care AT ALL what other people think, then you can become insensitive, hurtful to others, a violator of the boundaries of others, and a generally disrespectful, empathy-lacking jerk.
Funny thing, there are people here on this forum who would probably advise NOT to care what others think...but if I were to share some stories of my personal life, would tell me they did not want to hear that, and I'm supposed to (for some reason) care what they think. But, in fact, to some extent I do, because I am not here to simply make people uncomfortable. I try to strike a balance between respecting the feelings of others, and being my genuine self. That's life.
I agree with this. So it needs to be balanced carefully.
Is it psychologically healthy to have no concern what-so-ever how people view you? Or is there some sort of psychological benefit to caring about what people think about you?
I make my own bed. (Well many times my wife makes it, but you get the point.) What ever I do counts only to me. I don't care what other people think of me. last I checked I am only in a race with myself.
To top it off, I don't much care about what other people do or say either. They are free to live their own life.
One of the big problems we have as a society is caring what other people think. Many business deals have died because someone with an idea asked someone else what they thought. Nothing is impossible and when someone has an amazing idea, even if it is crazy it is best to support them in their decision to proceed. Lots of crazy ideas have made it off the ground and are doing very well now.
I have kids and that can be an issue for some kids. They care what their friends think of them. We had one son that would do some crazy things in high school. One year he wore a Santa Suit to school. My wife asked him if he should do that. She said, what will everyone think? Our son told her, I don't care what people think. Sometimes us adults need to relearn that too. It does not matter what people think. Now it may have helped that our son was one of the most popular kids in school. Another story about him, the school had a program for autistic kids. He would talk to him as much as he talked to anyone else. Those kids loved him. A friend of his asked why he always talked to those kids. Our son told his friend that they were Triton's (the school maskot) just like him and his friend were. No reason not to give these kids the same respect.
What about a job interview, or a job evaluation? That's all about what someone else thinks! How about if you go to buy a new car, and you're dressed like a street bum? Or if you go into a fine restaurant, smelling and dirty?
Does anyone remember the movie To Sir, With Love? With Sydney Potier, it was made in the 60's. It was about a black teacher in an all white, lower-class neighborhood. Basically, his students never had a role model. He took them on a little "field trip", to teach them how to approach businesses for a job (this was pre internet, of course.) The first one, a student dressed like a bum, with manners to match, went up to the reception desk, and asked, almost in rap, hey, baby, how do I get a job around here? He was given the cold shoulder. The next place, a student dressed nicely in a suit, with decent manners, went up to the reception desk and politely asked if he could see the hiring manager.....she looked up, smiled, and said sure, wait while I phone Mr. Bigshot, I know he's looking for a new assistant.
See^^^^^^ There's two, albeit fictional, examples of what people think and how it matters.
What people think is important. It can open or close doors for us. It depends on the situation, of course. A few years ago, I got tired of taking abuse from my kids, and threw them out. I know a lot of people thought ill of me, but it wasn't their decision, and they weren't the ones being abused. Taking care of myself exceeded any responsibility I had to my adult children. I simply sailed above all the "talk" and got my dignity back. BTW, both kids are doing just fine. My DD has established herself in her own place, and DS is back living with us while working and going to school, but a completely different person. I guess the time spent couch surfing and living on the streets taught him something!
What about a job interview, or a job evaluation? That's all about what someone else thinks! How about if you go to buy a new car, and you're dressed like a street bum? Or if you go into a fine restaurant, smelling and dirty?
Does anyone remember the movie To Sir, With Love? With Sydney Potier, it was made in the 60's. It was about a black teacher in an all white, lower-class neighborhood. Basically, his students never had a role model. He took them on a little "field trip", to teach them how to approach businesses for a job (this was pre internet, of course.) The first one, a student dressed like a bum, with manners to match, went up to the reception desk, and asked, almost in rap, hey, baby, how do I get a job around here? He was given the cold shoulder. The next place, a student dressed nicely in a suit, with decent manners, went up to the reception desk and politely asked if he could see the hiring manager.....she looked up, smiled, and said sure, wait while I phone Mr. Bigshot, I know he's looking for a new assistant.
See^^^^^^ There's two, albeit fictional, examples of what people think and how it matters.
What people think is important. It can open or close doors for us. It depends on the situation, of course. A few years ago, I got tired of taking abuse from my kids, and threw them out. I know a lot of people thought ill of me, but it wasn't their decision, and they weren't the ones being abused. Taking care of myself exceeded any responsibility I had to my adult children. I simply sailed above all the "talk" and got my dignity back. BTW, both kids are doing just fine. My DD has established herself in her own place, and DS is back living with us while working and going to school, but a completely different person. I guess the time spent couch surfing and living on the streets taught him something!
And I see your example with your kids, as, maybe you decided not to care what outsiders thought, but I believe you really did care what your kids thought. Or rather, what sort of thinking was unacceptable and would not continue to be tolerated. Your kids seemed to think they could treat you badly and mooch off of you, and get away with it. So you threw them out. You didn't let your son come back until he had CHANGED HIS THINKING.
You decided whose thought processes had any weight in your decisions, and whose did not.
"Why be nice?" Maybe because you like to be nice or believe in being nice and not just because people expect you to be nice.
What I'm saying (I thought plainly enough) is that Jesus didn't care what people thought; only what his Father in heaven thought.
Right. I'm saying I find this interesting. See, I don't believe in the Christian philosophies or teachings or dogma. Most of my values are based on not harming people, not what any savior or God might think. My prime directive is not to do harm to others. So while a religious person might not steal, because his Bible said so and he's concerned with being a righteous man and the disposition of his soul in the afterlife...and a person who has no religion but a great fear or respect of authoritative structure might not steal because it's against the law and he'll go to jail... I don't steal because a.) I consider it a harm done to others whether directly or indirectly, b.) I feel it would set a stain of anxiety on my mind for the wrongdoing of it and make me a sort of person I don't wish to be, and c.) I believe in certain standards of behavior to enable humans to exist in a social environment, and that is one of them.
There are laws I don't respect and haven't always followed. And there are things that are legal that I find morally repugnant on a very personal level, and therefore would never do even though I could. My concept of a Higher Power is morally neutral and I don't believe in the afterlife, so religious rules have no meaning to me, except insofar as I believe that many were canonized (by people in positions of power or authority) simply to help humans function as a social species...but one must sift the useful wheat from the chaff of religious rules put in place simply as a means of controlling people in unnecessary ways.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
