Who is thinking of you?

Shortly after I wrote my birthday tribute to Hillary and mentioned how she was fearless and seemed to be immune to what random passersby think, I heard the following quotation:

“The 18/40/60 Rule: When you’re 18, you worry about what everybody is thinking of you; when you’re 40, you don’t give a darn what anybody thinks of you; when you’re 60, you realize nobody’s been thinking about you at all.” Dr. Daniel Amen.

It is so true!!!!

Growing up I very much had the Lisa Simpson mentality: “Validate me! Grade me!” My need for external validation went more than a bit wonky, and I cared more about what everyone else was thinking about me than what I thought of myself.

As I mentioned in my post about returning to reading, despite having many friends who were into science fiction or fantasy, I never explored the genre in high school. I knew that the popular people made fun of the people who were into that. This is a major Dr. Phil moment, because that didn’t work for me. Somehow not doing something that I now love didn’t make me popular. Go figure!

Weirdly enough, though, I’ve always been more willing to make a fool of myself in front of a room full of strangers instead of people I know.

[Author’s Note: Wow! Talk about how the way something is phrased reflects the mindset of the speaker! What I was doing wasn’t “making a fool of myself”, it was learning something new. I’d never pieced it together that I viewed my awkward first steps in acquiring a skill as making a fool of myself. That’s not what I see when looking at others. I need to take a moment to absorb that!]

When I first started dancing, as much as I wanted to get better, I didn’t want to practice new skills in front of  Kurt. He is a very insightful dance instructor and realized what was happening. “Tammy, I see you dancing badly all the time. I would think more highly of your dancing if I could watch you working to get better.” No, he didn’t stand in the line to get tact, but that approach worked for me, and I was more willing to do it. I still preferred to put in the repetition time at home so I could show improvement the next day, but it did help with a mindset shift.

I think dance helped me more with adopting this mentality than anything else. Everyone at the studio was working on the areas that needed the most help. Practice is like the laundry mat – you pull out the dirty clothes, everyone pretends not to notice when your underwear is showing, and at the end you hopefully have the same item only a little cleaner. For the most part, it felt like being alone in a room full of people. It was me and the woman in the mirror. I swear I was better than she was!

The Dr. Amen quotation is right! I’m 40 and not caring what others thing (to a degree). I think my willingness to post my driver’s license picture and the one of me in nose plugs is proof!

How much energy do you spend trying to impress people that aren’t paying attention to you?