How to stop caring about what others think of you

The once childish rhyme we used to sing was a form of mockery: “liar, liar, pants on fire”. Those five words could turn your face red and fill you with embarrassment.

I hated being called a liar, and I bet you did too. Especially if that was sung after. Even today, one of the things that I hate most is being called a liar, particularly if I was saying the truth. It’s a different story if I was lying. But there is a reason that so many people hate being called a liar.

“Because I’m not!” is one of the main reasons. But the most annoying part is then being considered guilty because you were defending yourself. My parents always told me that if I wasn’t lying I should not bother defending myself because I did not need to prove anything to anyone. I resented this idea because of how much I cared about what people thought of me. Most people do, we care so much about what other people think of us, we forget who we are ourselves. As easy that is to admit, it is much harder to implement.

The issue with caring too much about what other people think of you is that you will never be able to please everybody. Trust me on this one, I’ve tried.

We all hate being called something we’re not, for you it may be a liar. For me, I hated being called untrustworthy, because I prided myself in this, and if that was taken away from me, I would defend it with all my might. But you shouldn’t care too much, and here is why:

1) The people that matter in your life will always believe you. If someone doesn’t, that may be a sign that they shouldn’t matter to you.

2) People will always think whatever they want to. Even if you had never lied in your entire life, there will always be one person who thinks the opposite. So don’t bother trying to control what they think.

3) You cannot control what other people say, think or do. If they don’t want to believe you, then that’s fine, it should not bother you.

4) Other people’s opinions don’t have the power to hurt you until you let it. If someone out in the world thought something horrible of you and you never heard about it, would it impact your life? No, so don’t give people the power to let their opinions hurt you.

5) You can’t please everyone, and even if you managed to please most people, by then, you would have forgotten yourself completely.

“Liar, liar, pants on fire”.

Your pants will not catch on fire if you’re not a liar, so don’t worry about it. If we put as much focus in caring about what the Creator thought of us compared to what mankind thought of us, we would be much better people.

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