The Opinions of Others
The British singer Amy Winehouse suffered from substance abuse and addiction, which stemmed from her troubled past and family problems. Amy's personal problems played out in the public eye, which was amplified by criticism of her unique style mixed with Jazz, Soul, and R&B that didn't fit into mainstream pop culture. Some critics found her controversial and provocative for the unconventional approach she took. The scrutiny she received took a heavy toll on her well-being and ultimately lead to her unfortunate death.
While we may refer to ourselves as thought-independent and claim not to care about what others say to or about us, this notion remains a fantasy. Others' opinions influence us in one way or another. The problem with that is, we often mistake opinions with reality. We take others' perceptions and opinions to heart and rarely question them especially when they are posed by people who we view highly.
We place immoderate importance on the viewpoints and judgments of others. This entangles our self-worth with the applause and criticism we receive, which makes us vulnerable in many ways.
In this exploration, we delve into why we overvalue others' opinions so much, how can we overcome that, and why incorporating a different perspective could benefit us.
The Overvaluation of Others' Opinions
Most of us think too much about what others think of us. We have an illogical fear of being judged. Instead of searching for what we want and acting on it, we revert back to that fear some of us even let our dreams die on us because of it and conform to what others think of us.Why would we let such barriers hinder us from pursuing our own goals and desires, or expressing ourselves fully? This fear of being negatively evaluated stomps us from doing and saying what we actually want to. But it is not for no good reason. These are deeply ingrained obstacles that many never come to face and overcome, and exploring them is a great first step towards that. Some of these obstacles are:
Fear of Rejection: The possibility of being rejected and excluded by others is daunting to many of us. This leads us to avoid potential negative outcomes, such as not being liked, abandoned, and criticized. We can see this in social settings when a person hesitates to share their own personal opinion with a group of people because they might feel like their viewpoint might be rejected.
Social Approval: While it can be interconnected with the fear of rejection, social approval encompasses the desire to conform to social norms. We can be extremely anxious in a social setting when we feel like we need to conform to social norms that we might be led to believe will make us happy. Which is completely false.
In an article published by the Universal Journal of Education Research, it was found that college students who have a strong need for social approval experience high levels of anxiety, which can impact their happiness levels.1
Inferiority: It is the feeling of not amounting to a set standard and being of a lower status than others. Especially with how social media is integrated into our lives now, it is easier to feel like we are lesser compared to other people when there is no context to what we are seeing and listening to.
Take celebrity relationships as an example. A lot of people viewed Will and Jada Smith's perfect for one another, even referenced in music, most notably by J Cole in his song No Role Modelz where he says: "I want a real love, that Jada and that Will love" Well, as of late, it has been revealed that they had a toxic relationship that was in no way desirable or favorable.
Insecurity: It is the lack of confidence or self-assurance about our own ability whether in taking risks or asserting oneself when it needs to be. And it plays a major role in feeling anxious, indecisive, and uncertain. For example, this may lead to us feeling reluctant to take up challenges in our jobs which would then hinder our way to promotions and deserved compensation.
Overcoming Others' Opinions
Stoic philosopher, Seneca once said: "Why do you seek gratification in the accolades of those whom you cannot esteem yourself?" It puts us in perspective as to why we take pleasure in praise from those we cannot praise ourselves. We can overcome that by cultivating essential attributes. Some of these attributes are:
Reflection: Asking ourselves questions as to why we do certain things, and why we listen to certain people and hold their opinions on a platter can effectively contribute to understanding the underlying issue we have that prevents us from accomplishing what we want, whether it be expressing ourselves freely, or simply becoming authentic to ourselves.
Such questions can be, do the people we listen to deserve our attention? Do we know their true intentions? Do we understand what their true intentions are? Their ideas might not align with what is best for us, those ideas can be narrow, superficial, inconsiderate, or unsympathetic.
Calmness: Taking our time and assessing situations based on facts, experience, and context proves to be better than just blindly conforming to the norm. It guides us to critically think and come up with the action most desirable to our own preference. Our calm mind is the ultimate weapon against the storms of opinion that we constantly endure.
Indifference: In this context, it is a state of not being affected by peoples' opinions. So it is basically an apathetic attitude toward what is being thrown at us. It is being unaffected by a particular person, situation, or outcome. Many philosophers attribute this characteristic to stoicism as it is one of its most important aspects.
Roman emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius wrote extensively in his personal writings about stoicism. One of his quotes that holds true to this day is: "Choose not be harmed, and you won't be harmed. Don't feel harmed, and you haven't been." He emphasizes that our interpretation is detrimental to whether an opinion or an event is harmful or not.
Middle Ground and Concluding Thoughts
While it holds true, mindlessly listening to what others say to us cripples us. However, paying zero attention to our surroundings is highly dangerous if taken to an extreme. There always needs to be a balanced approach.
Not caring can prevent us from identifying and learning from mistakes. It is similar to learning something new. We can only learn by getting feedback and being open to the insights of others. Numerous examples highlight this, a programmer relies on debugging to identify and correct errors in codes, a painter refines their technique through observations of their artwork, a basketball player enhances their performance by analyzing the game and coaching advice, and a student develops academically by the insights of their instructors.
There needs to be a path that we follow where we can learn when there is a benefit for it, and that happens when we can critically identify people whose opinions aren't to be taken at all, and others that are alerting us to errors in our actions.
It is important to understand the difference between having our own perspective and commanding our own lives while also being aware of our flawed nature and need for guidance. Embracing diverse viewpoints and challenging others' opinions encourages us to recognize that strength and growth come from engaging with different perspectives, and seeking a balanced approach that integrates many views.
We have to be selective so as not to listen to everybody's opinion as many people could have malicious intent toward us. Not only to protect ourselves from the harm of other people but to prevent ourselves from living an aimless life with no clear direction, because then it is easy to jump into the dark path that would lead us to lose our own sense of self.
It could be difficult to set a definitive goal when we're overwhelmed socially, and personally. But we can start off step by step aiming at a closer target and gradually moving farther as time goes. We'll finish this post with a video in which Jordan Peterson articulates this idea profoundly:
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