No One Is Thinking About You (and That’s a Good Thing)

When I was growing up, particularly in my teenage years, if I was stressed about my outfit before a party or a haircut gone wrong, my mom had one phrase for me: “No one is thinking about you.”

What she meant—and would go on to explain—was that every girl at that party was worried about what she herself looked like, whether her crush would be there, and all the other things on the long list of teenage woes. Therefore, no one was thinking about me because they were too busy thinking about themselves.

I found such relief in that thought then, and I still do now. It seems to bring even more freedom in adulthood, and I consider it a rare gift I was given—one I would like to pass on to my girls. So many of my friends tie themselves in knots over what they think others perceive about them. And it’s not that someone thinking ill of us isn’t something to care about—I think it’s just that it rarely happens the way we imagine, if at all.

Author David Foster Wallace put it this way: “You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.”

What great news.