When we understand that our perspective and other people’s perspectives are only a small slice of the truth then we know that other people’s opinions don’t mean shit. We all struggle with clarity and other people's judgments are usually clouded through their own lens of life.
How can anyone fully understand our perspective? They can’t. They can learn more by listening and asking questions, but if we struggle to understand ourselves and what we want out of life, how can we expect anyone else to fully understand us, or we them? They can guide us, but this is hard because most people give advice instead of being curious. They give us advice as if they are in our shoes. They want us to avoid the struggles that they’ve dealt with. This is nice of them, but very misguided. We are different from them and their struggles are not ours.
That’s why we must go after things that matter to us. We go after these things because when we follow our hearts instead of listening to other people. We are happier and usually do great things for the world. We can only do this when we stop worrying about what other people think. They want us to eat this amazing shit pies like “Do you think you’ll be happier at a different job?” or “Do you really want that car? They are planting seeds of doubt to try to protect us. These little questions are just shit pies meant to keep us safe instead of living a full life.
Sometimes other people think they know what is best for us, but they don’t. They only know what’s best for them if they were in our position. If we let other people dictate our choices then we create mental cages that hold us back. We have to follow our hearts. Do things because we want to do them. If our actions and choices align with our values and they don’t cause any harm, then what is stopping us?
Our fear of what other people think. There is the sick cyclical merry-go-round that occurs in our head. We want other people’s approval because that’s how we measure our success. There’s the mental rub! We see how people are impressed with our job, car, home, new bike, etc. We think that we are doing well, when we are just eating shit pies and telling ourselves we are happy.
To fly free we need to calibrate our success from our hearts. We stop comparing ourselves to others and only compare how far we’ve come since last year.We need to do a better job of guiding ourselves. Asking ourselves how much a goal matters to us. Are we doing it for ourselves or someone one else? Then we can break down these invisible walls inside of ourselves. We break down these walls and eat all the apple pie that we want.
Too often we let people who don’t understand our vision hold us back from doing what we love because they tap into our fears. Instead of allowing others to hold you back, focus on the things that you love and not giving a shit what anyone thinks about it. That’s when you fly free!
Check out the next lesson: Failure helps you understand yourself.