Opinions

A lot of people don’t like me.

.

I know because some of them used to.

A week ago, Facebook reminded me that nine years had passed since I walked into Santiago de Compostela after 35 days on the Camino. I had started in France, crossed the Pyrenees and walked across Spain with everything I needed on my back.

Thousands of people followed that journey. When I reached Santiago, the comments poured in.

I went back and read them all.

What caught my attention was how many familiar names were no longer part of my life. At least a third of the comments—maybe closer to half—came from people who had followed me across Spain and cheered me on, most of whom I knew personally.

Alas, between that day in Santiago and now, they unfriended / blocked me, or disappeared

In many cases, I have no idea why. And more surprising, I didn’t need to find out.

That would not have been true for much of my life. A year ago, depending on who it was, I might have lost a day to the question. Twenty years ago, several days.

I would have gone looking for an explanation, replayed conversations or reread exchanges. I’d investigate for where things turned. Had they misunderstood me? Could I fix it?

Soon, I’d be holding court in my own head.

I could prosecute them, defend myself, build their case and tear it apart. If the rejection hurt enough, I could make them wrong or decide I didn’t like them either.

All while they were nowhere near me.

Days of unpaid emotional labor over someone else’s decision.

There were nights I lost sleep over this, lying in bed exhausted while my mind dragged more evidence into a case that could not be resolved at two in the morning.

Meanwhile, they could be sound asleep, out to dinner or living an ordinary Tuesday without thinking about me once.

And I was spending my life on their opinion.

I thought I was looking for resolution. I wasn’t looking at what it was costing me.

I could lose hours over someone not liking me, replaying conversations and building a case in my head. I could ruin a perfectly good day arguing with someone who wasn’t even there.

That was a lot of life force spent on something I couldn’t control.

What an extraordinary amount of life to spend trying to control a piece of real estate inside somebody else’s mind.

And even if I found out why someone disliked me, then what?

Maybe I could explain myself and change their mind. But there would always be someone else. A stranger who formed an opinion from thirty seconds of a video. Someone who knew me fifteen years ago and still thinks that woman is standing here.

At my ten-year high school reunion, some people still seemed to see the version of me they remembered from high school.

They were holding an old snakeskin and calling it the snake.

A lot of skins had been shed since then.

People I knew years ago may have changed too. How could I possibly know? They deserve the same freedom to outgrow old versions of themselves.

And someone disliking me doesn’t require me to dislike them back.

Disagreeing, leaving or refusing behavior is one thing. Spending years hating the person responsible is another. That costs me too.

The economics are hard to ignore when our attention, time, sleep and creative energy are all finite resources.

The price gets even higher when fear starts making decisions before anything has even happened.

What won’t I say, create, charge, leave, wear, attempt or admit that I want because someone might dislike me, and how much will I edit myself before anyone has even objected?

At that point, their opinion isn’t just taking my energy. I’ve given it a vote in how I live my life.

So when I looked through those old Camino comments and saw names of people who once cheered me on but aren’t part of my life today, something stood out.

I no longer needed to know why.

They have their reasons, just as I have mine. Many of us have changed. Whatever those reasons are, I don’t need to lose another hour replaying conversations, digging for answers, mentally defending myself or trying to solve a case that has no verdict.

There is too much life happening to spend it litigating my place in someone else’s mind.

And this isn’t only about people from the past.

Someone can be right in front of you—a spouse, a parent, a boss, a friend or someone online who keeps coming back for another shot—and still take up enormous amounts of mental real estate.

How much energy goes into explaining yourself, anticipating their reaction, keeping the peace or letting their voice get so loud in your head that you can’t hear your own?

Eventually, the question isn’t whether someone likes you.

The question is how much of your life you’re willing to spend managing what they think of you.

Someone else gets to have an opinion of me.

I get to decide how much life force I spend on it.

That’s the part I can control.

Where does someone else’s opinion still get more of your life force than you want to give it?

 

This question is part of my Living Lab—an ongoing exploration of the stories, assumptions and patterns running our lives.

 

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