Today I came across one of those Let’s Normalize (Something That No One Really Cares Whoever Said to Normalize It Is Doing And Feeling Defensive About It) posts and I was reminded of another piece of wisdom that stuck with me when I got sober for the first time.
That wisdom was that most people don’t actually care that much about you because they’re not really thinking about you.
I don’t mean to hurt your feelings and I don’t mean that your mom is like that. Your mom is great! I mean most strangers, audiences… whoever you’re thinking of when you stop yourself from doing the thing that you think you need to talk about normalizing or that you need some sort of social approval for.
The truth is most people spend most of their time just thinking about themselves and are too busy doing that to be invested in whatever weird shit we think we’re embarrassing ourselves with or need to defend or apologize for. Most people are possibly thinking they are embarrassing themselves too but, of course, we’d be too busy to notice anyway, if they are, since we are busy thinking they’re thinking about us embarrassing ourselves. And so on.
Just do the thing. As long as you’re not hurting anyone, just do the thing. Or don’t do it. Nobody cares. Your mom cares but the rest of us? We don’t.