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"I Don't Care What Anyone Thinks!" and other Lies

When someone says, "I don't care what anyone thinks", they are in essence saying, "I want you to think I'm impervious to pain caused by the negative judgements of others."

If someone genuinely doesn't care what anyone thinks, they won't bother trying to convince you of it, since they don't care what you're convinced of.

We all care what someone thinks.

We care about what the people we care about think of us.

The more we value a person's judgement and opinion, the more their perception of us influences us.

If we find someone's opinions to be base, shallow, worthless, and so on, we can easily dismiss their derision, unless of course the person is someone you are, for the moment, forced to tolerate. If they are in a position of influence over you such as a boss or parent, it's worse.

"I hate him/her!"

Hate is usually a manifestation of another emotion closer to love that was bruised or rejected. People tend to hate exes or bad parents most, people you loved and wanted to love you, but they didn't. Sometimes it can be someone who hurt you badly some other way, but hate generally means, "they hurt me."

It has been said "hate isn't the opposite of love; indifference is the opposite of love."

Most people are afraid to express their real thoughts and emotions, because they don't want to be disliked, rejected, ridiculed, and past experience has taught most people that making yourself vulnerable is a bad idea because people are cruel and cold and like wild wolves, target the injured to devour.

But there is more power in truth than in pretend.

If someone is trapped in anger, bitterness, hate, and rage, they might, to some, project an air of strength or ferocity, and feel that their anger keeps them safe from the pain of past hurts, losses, disappointments, rejections, insults, but it doesn't. Anger and bitterness are poison to live with. It eats you up inside and makes you unable to smile from your heart, unable to love, unable to connect. It's a dark prison.

The truth will set you free.

There is a strength past the hurt and anger, a strength in being honest and vulnerable, releasing the poison, that is so much stronger than the wall of anger we at times use as a protective shield around ourselves.

Maybe you had bad parents. That's sad and tragic and if parents hurt children, it's evil and wrong. What made the parents that way? Maybe they themselves were abused and hurt. It can be an endless cycle. Maybe your parents just stuck you in some daycare with strangers, and you felt scared and alone and lost from the beginning, lost in a sea of strangers, unloved, unwanted, abandoned. That sucks too. Maybe you lost someone you loved.

Feeling hurt, feeling unloved, can lead people to become bitter, angry, and cruel to others in an "I'll get you before you get me" mentality.

Continuing the cycle will lead to you becoming the thing you hate, the cold, unloving, neglectful, or abusive parent. They passed on their hurt to you. You pass on your hurt to others. The cycle continues.

If you judge your parent or other guardian or someone who hurt you for not breaking the cycle, why aren't you breaking the cycle?

When it's focused on, the brokenness of humanity, it can be depressing and devastating. All the hurt in the world is a heavy load. All the evil in the world, the hateful, bloody, violent, cold, murderous, lustful, cruel things people do to other people can leave one devoid of hope and utterly in despair.

And if that's all we had, there would be no reason for anything other than despair.

But it's not the whole story.

The whole story is that of a loving Creator who made the earth and the people on it, who intended for love, harmony, and peace, but people rebelled and became corrupt, captivated by evil and selfish pursuits rather than in following the Creator's perfect plan. We are fallen, we are broken, we are rotten, and often do things we are ashamed of.

The Creator, in his great love, became one of us, so he could bear our sin and be our savior, be the perfect sinless sacrifice to appease the wrath of God on evil, on our evil, that he took upon himself. Jesus Christ, the Son of God took all the sin and evil and suffered cruel beatings, mockings, scourging, and death on a cross, so that we could be freed from the guilt and punishment of our own evil deeds.

We have been saved. We have been called to new life, to live in love and kindness.

Trusting in Jesus makes one saved.

I love the words of Be Still, My Soul, especially verse 3 where it says "Be still, my soul: your Jesus can repay from his own fullness all he takes away."

I remember crying my eyes out while singing that verse years ago, feeling skeptical that what I'd lost could ever be made up for, that the agonizing pain inside could ever be soothed, that the brokenness in me could ever be made whole. A different time I cried singing it at a funeral.

Sometimes it takes years, but Jesus can indeed repay from his own fullness all he takes away.

1 Be still, my soul: the Lord is on your side;
bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
leave to your God to order and provide;
in ev'ry change he faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: your best, your heav'nly Friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

2 Be still, my soul: your God will undertake
to guide the future as he has the past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
all now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
his voice who ruled them while he dwelt below.

3 Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
and all is darkened in the vale of tears,
then shall you better know his love, his heart,
who comes to soothe your sorrow and your fears.
Be still, my soul: your Jesus can repay
from his own fullness all he takes away.

4 Be still, my soul: the hour is hast'ning on
when we shall be forever with the Lord,
when disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

 

 

 

why you write that so long who can read this much?

I think most people without brain damage who made it through high school can handle it lol.

Don't force yourself. I don't want you to have a breakdown while trying.