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"I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others." - Marcus Aurelius

You want to do something different and follow your passion, but you don't because you care about what other people think of you.

You want to be honest about everything, but you don't because you care about what other people think of you.

You want to sing your heart out when your favourite song comes on the radio, but you don't because you care about what other people think of you.

You want to live life the way YOU want to, but you don't because you care about what other people think of you.

This obsession of the opinions of others is an impenetrable wall stopping you from living life the way it should be lived.

Why do you care so much about the opinions of others? Why do you limit your potential daily? Well there's an answer to that. It's built into our DNA.

You are a victim do the evolutionary dichotomy between your advanced brain and your instincts. Your brain has goals, dreams, aspirations. Your instincts try to keep you alive. If you lived many thousands of years ago, you would have needed to be in a tribe to survive.

Your tribe would help you eat well, drink well and provide you with shelter. It would also provide you potential partners to have children with. The opinions of others had a direct impact on your survival. The potential threat of being exiled was as serious as living or dying.

But nowadays this threat is non existent. Why are you still worrying about what your friends, family or even strangers think about you? These people do not walk around with you for your whole life. They will not be with you when you reflect on whether you lived a good life or not. As weird as it sounds: only you are with you. So the only opinion that matters is the opinion you hold of yourself.

Other people's opinions do not matter. They are surface level judgements about you. They have no real idea who you are, what you are doing or why you are doing it. Your own perspective is unique and is the underlying core to your self esteem which is something that follows you around for the rest of your life.

It used to agitate me when I would say "bless you" and they wouldn't say "thank you" back. With Stoicism I realised how petty this was and now my self esteem is high enough that I couldn't care less what other people's response to me is.

One of the stepping stones of becoming a true Stoic is to gather as much information about your own opinion of yourself as you can. Be aware of your actions, be aware of how you respond to other people as they test you, be aware of how you respond to criticism and negativity. These are all indicators to how much you value yourself.

There is a clear, simple, surefire way to value your opinion above the opinion of all others.

You must come up with a unique and specific understanding of what you want out of life. This takes time to perfect and you cannot copy any one else. You must judge every one of your actions and thoughts and see if the align with what you want out of life.

For example, if you truly believe that doing what nature demands of you is your goal in life then you must become caring and social despite what people say or do to you. You should judge your decisions and actions and see how they measure up to your large scale personal ideologies. When you are aware of this you will see how irrelevant other people's opinions are. You won't care whether they think you are wasting your time trying to help a selfish person.

Whatever you do, as long as it aligns with your personal belief system, you will have a rock solid self esteem.

“Tranquility…comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.” - Marcus Aurelius

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