It's important to me what people think of me - and "I don't care."
Over the decades of my work, I have heard this phrase in hundreds of variations:
— “It’s important to me what people think of me.”
And then, years later, therapy, trauma, rethinking: “Now I don’t care. I’m free.”
But the truth is that both are not freedom. They are just two cells of the same prison, in which a person still revolves around someone else's gaze. Only from different sides.
The first cell: be good to others
It is the most common. It is instilled in us from childhood: "What will the neighbors think?", "You are a girl", "You are a future man". And a person learns to live in such a way that, God forbid, he does not stray from the "correct". Not to be strange. Not to be inconvenient. Not to be alive.He puts on a mask - successful, polite, strong, nice, whatever. And lives with constant anxiety: "How do I look from the outside?" Any mistake is like a disaster. Any criticism is like a knife. Because inside there is a conviction: if they think badly of me, then I am bad.
This is slavery through dependence on opinion.
Second cell: deliberate indifference
And then comes fatigue. Disappointment. Anger. Sometimes therapy. The man drops the mask and says:- "I don't care what people think about me. I don't want to fit in anymore."
And this sounds like freedom. But in reality, it is simply a reaction, not a choice. Man still lives in dialogue with others - only now in opposition. He is not free, he is at war.
He does the opposite on purpose, demonstratively, provocatively. He spends the same energy - but now not on pleasing, but on protecting. He says "I don't care", but at the same time everything inside him reacts - with protest, contempt, anger.
This is another form of addiction - disgust at someone else's gaze instead of fear of it.
And what is real freedom?
True freedom is an internal foundation. When you don't live from the opposite and don't live for approval. When you simply know who you are. And you can be different - soft and hard, vulnerable and strong - because you don't hide or defend yourself, but rely on yourself.Freedom is when you are able to hear the opinions of others, but are not destroyed by them. When you do not need to shout “I don’t care” - because you are truly independent, and not because you are angry.
How to get there?
This is not an act of will. This is not decided in one morning. It is a path - through:- admitting your pain of being rejected,
- an honest look at your roles,
- understanding how you became who you “should be”
- and, most importantly, allowing yourself to be alive, imperfect, real.
But I can tell you for sure: it is possible. Freedom is not loud. It is quiet. It comes when you stop fighting and start living.
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