It's really not accurate, nor is it human to say "I don't care what people think". To some extent, we all do, because if we didn't, we'd be absent of some very integral feelings (not to mention conversations) that are included as bonus prizes in the neatly wrapped gift box that is life. Something to strive for, in contrast, is to care as little as possible. Now, there's a real goal.
If you're someone who has managed to broaden their own perspective horizons despite rigidly placed social constructs, I congratulate you (your gift box no doubt has very pretty wrapping paper). If you're still scrambling like a mouse through a maze within some prison that has been built concretely to hold you within the boundaries of what this world wants you to believe, then let me allow you and your soul an escape route. You've got pretty paper, too, you've just got to learn to wrap the box.
A glowing fact of life is that people will always talk. Whether with praise or disapproval, it is a basic human instinct to validate ourselves through the medium of others. Unfortunately the well of praise tends to run dry at the hands of someone else's thundercloud (how's that for irony?). Your life, sadly, will always be someones (probably several someones) punching bag, but your own significance lies within how much you decide to bruise from the blows.
There is a sweet little place buried deep in your mind, where you rise above the hooks and jabs and simply decide that your own happiness and growth is worth more. Never stop searching for that place, even after you've found it, because the little bugger likes to fumble around, and so there's always more of "it" to find. Each time you unlock another little piece of that place, you become a more beautiful, intelligent, expanded, and experienced person than you were before. Looking for the "secret of life"? You're welcome.
At my high school graduation, myself and a classmate read a comedic speech aimed at all the quirks our various teachers had, our theater arts teacher was quoted with one of her own personal favorites (which we managed to get the entire class to retort in sync, pretty impressive if I do say so myself). The quote was by Eleanor Roosevelt, and it goes: "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." If you had asked me then, at seventeen, if I'd be laying in bed at twenty two recounting that quote and its significance in a blog post, I would have said, "No b'y". The quote speaks volumes, but even the greatest minds engage themselves in a gossip laden, bitterness sprinkled spew of tiny minded jabber from time to time.
If your every anxiety stems from over thinking and agonizing every little decision you fear judgement from, please stop, now. Life is short, don't be so foolish. There's nothing a small mind loves to talk about more than YOUR perceived lack of morality. Hold on to your hats, kids, because there's no bumpier ride than a journey over the roads of morality. What immediately determines whether or not your morality is questionable? Why, who've you've had sex with of course! Naturally, that determines your place in the proverbial heaven or hell which exists in the minds of others (don't forget, God's watching too) because surely there's no greater crime in this world than satisfying a biological instinct that you're born with. There is a time and a place for every relationship you experience in this lifetime, don't let anyone tell you differently. The only morality to be concerned with is the one that feeds your own worth; the morality you learn from lending your love to others, or from easing pains with a conscious presence and an open heart.
Nobody knows your love or your life, your memories or your pains, and in the purest fashion of logic, it's just preposterous to think you can judge someone if you don't know those things. Even if you do, greater still are the accompanying feelings and individual differences which account for just how and why everyone experiences an "experience" as they do. If that sounds complicated, it's because it is, so stop thinking you can lay out flat lined "facts" which encompass the whole story in a cookie cutter fashion. You can't. Worry about fighting your own battle, because that's the one that deserves the bulk of your attention, and it's the one which yields the most virtuous rewards.
When you're hurt by someone's words or actions, there is a tiny ribbon you can hold in your palm, it is small and sometimes fragile, and it can be whatever color you want it to be, but what is most important is that the tiny ribbon leads to a whole spool of ribbon. That spool is your life, and there's plenty of ribbon for all your years. That's the ribbon that fits snugly around the corners of the gift box that is your existence, holding the pretty paper in place. It's also the ribbon that caresses the corners of the gift boxes you give other people just as snugly. That ribbon is patterned with all the amazing people you should intentionally surround yourself with, and further decorated by all the substance and beauty that is you. Don't ever stop giving gifts of support, of love, of compassion, and open mindedness. Remember that you are greater, and definitely happier, than someone who has to expel their own energies in an attempt to make you look or feel bad. Even if you HAVE done something bad, be great enough to own up to it, and realize that the mistakes you make are one of the greatest reservoirs of growth in your life. Don't be afraid to cut some corners of your ribbon ever now and then, either. Every experience has a lesson or two (if not fifty) packaged within it. It's like your birthday, or Christmas: you get to tear away the paper vigorously, and be really excited to keep what's inside the box forever.
To "wrap" this up, I revert back to Mrs. Roosevelt's statement by saying that you should permit your mind to be small only in the most limited amounts, for it is far too great of a mind to waste its thoughts on discussing the affairs of others. If you don't believe that for yourself, then rest assured that I believe it for you. Besides, you should be out there mingling in your own affairs, that's where you'll lose the more burdensome ideal of morality, and find all the most pleasurable indulgences.
Happy (Un)Wrapping!
-A Fabulous State
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