One of the keys to true personal freedom is to not waste your time worrying over what others think of you.

We learn early on to desperately seek after the approval of our peers.  This is especially so during those troubled teenage years, when the quest for peer approval can become all-consuming.

But after a time -- one comes to recognize the obsessive, never-ending (and never succeeding) quest for approval for what it is: a form of mental/emotional slavery and bondage.

Don't misunderstand me to be saying that the opinions of others shouldn't matter at all.  But your own sense of self-worth shouldn't be given over to the "kindness of strangers".  That's a dangerous place to look for your personal worth.....because those same strangers will almost always be of the firm opinion that they are better 'n you.  And that underlying, core attitude on their part -- the automatic assumption of their own innate superiority over the rest of the world (and especially over you) -- is the reason behind why they treat others the way that they do.

And that's also the reason why they are not to be taken seriously.

They are going to die someday, too.  And chances are: even the memory of them will be gone shortly afterwards.  I've seen this happen.  I've seen some very successful, powerful people die relatively young.  And I've also seen them being very quickly forgotten about.

History only remembers a bare handful, out of all of the billions of people who have ever lived on this earth.

So......from that perspective: don't worry so much about what others have to say.  And there's this to consider, too: many people are simply motivated by envy.  And they will say nasty things.  It's got something to do with human nature.

Something To Do At 3:00AM