At a point in my life, I just stopped caring or placing too much emphasis on what people thought about me. Growing up, I realized that people had opinions regardless of how much you tried to shape those opinions. It’s always as if there is this silent battle that you fought and lost without even knowing it. People create opinions of you based on your parents, your siblings, your friends, your job, and most especially, their perceived idea of who you are.
Many times, there are those who are flexible in this, meaning that they can easily change their minds once they take time to learn more about you. But then, there are those who are unrelenting in their opinion of you, regardless of what you do and how hard you work, nothing will convince them to change their opinion of you. Anyway, you shouldn’t entertain such ideas.
This is one of the reasons I stopped seeing the need to explain myself a long time ago. The decisions I make about myself, my body, and my life are simply mine. You only get an explanation if I choose to give it to you. Regardless of what you think of me. There are people who try to explain every single time just to change people’s opinion of them. But they always fail, because in the end, people will only think what they want to think. That’s the truth.
I remember when I started wearing ear studs, it was a major change for someone like me, and many people who knew me previously wanted to know why I was adopting it. And I always gave them the same answer, “fine boi!” As far as I was concerned, that was the reason, I didn’t need to share or create a deep psychological reason for the act. It’s not like anyone was going to beat me.
As luck would have it, I’m already tired of wearing the studs, many times, I forget about them when I’m leaving. A time might come when I’ll simply dump it altogether, I won’t explain my reason then either.
The same thing happens with drinks, someone once wanted to know why I didn’t drink, smoke, or watch football. They had so many opinions, but I’ve come to the point in my life where if you’re trying to force an idea or opinion on me, I’d just leave the gathering. It’s not that hard. When we were at a pepper soup joint, the boys ordered beer, I ordered malt. I originally wanted yoghurt, but they didn’t have it, so I went with malt instead. Then one guy was like, how do I feel drinking malt when everyone was taking alcohol. I didn’t even dignify him with a response.
So, this is how I live my life. I’m not saying that people’s opinion of me doesn’t matter. After all, many times that’s the way you realize that maybe something you’ve adopted was wrong all the time. But then, it’s my choice to decide the opinion that matters. This is because everyone creates their opinions based on personal experience, perspective, and the little that they know of you. You’re the only one who truly knows everything going on in your life. And you get to decide the opinions that actually matter.
Well, it is what it is.
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