Life hurts us frequently no matter how much we try avoiding it. Feeling down when experiencing life is the very nature of human being. Many forms of pain come to our life from many avenues. However, those pain are not something hurting us the most eventually. All those just press us to hold onto that pain. Negative thoughts, hate comments, and things going badly are not punishment from people around us. The truth is we are hurting ourselves by swallowing the entire words. It is not important what really in someone’s mind about you. The only important thing to do is to let those worthless things out of our mind. Letting go of what happened previously and paying less attention of unnecessary things are great ways for growing wiser and becoming mature.
I have once successfully organized an event in my neighborhood. It was the first time I finally opened myself in this environment. I got seven persons in my team and our goal is to celebrate Indonesia’s birthday by holding a small stage. By contributing in this event, I met so many new friends. Some of them were being my close friends. That was why I never felt tired even though I had to work hard to carry out this event successfully.
We had deep talk several times, and we mysteriously had insight jokes that only we knowing that. I really like to be among my friends and feel like we became closer just in two meetings. However, I was so disappointed soon afterwards.
One of them said that we need to keep our friendship this way, without any change and nothing will stay away from us. I was touched, yet I wondered why it never happened. Only a day had passed, everything changed immediately. I still thought positively, perhaps they just got busy with their own life. Moreover, we rarely see each other for we were not at the same project anymore. A week later, I asked them to go out together as a celebration of the event we have held successfully. I was very happy at that time. We were going to a café in Sunday night, doing midnight road trip, and having long conversation on the car. These all made me happy so much, and this is the fault. I should have felt happy sufficiently to keep the disappointment away. After a night had passed, I felt something went wrong. We had no chats, no calls. While we met each other, they acted like we never knew each other. I was wondering if I made any mistakes. I was lost at sea with everything happened at that time. A month later, I finally realized that I did nothing wrong. They just left me suddenly for no reason.
Not long after, I heard some hate speech about me. People said that I always wanted to stay close with them, that I pleased to hang out with them so desperately. I overtaught about this. Then, I tried to let go, for I do not want to pay attention to those exhausting matters. I tried to keep in touch with them afterwards, and left my egos behind. I also asked if there was something wrong with me, but sadly they gave me the cold shoulder. It is not me staying away. They just left me asking what I had done, if I intentionally did something wrong. At the end, I know that they are the one who burn the bridge.
From this situation, I learn to stop holding onto people just because we have history together. You may feel a strong connection between you and your blessed friend, but who knows what they feel deep inside about you. It is not impossible that they may have bad point of you. What will disappoint you most in your life is the picture in your head of how it is supposed to be. Do not have any expectation of what will happen or what kind of treatment you will get from people in the future. Treat someone sufficiently. Do not give and love excessively. You can expect that happiness will come to you by doing it. I have learnt in this life that happiness is not a constant. It comes and goes, ebbs and flows.
Just pay no attention about what they think of you. There is absolutely no need to think what others say about you. People love gossiping and rudely give negative comments to everyone who they come across. You can analyze each look and word which comes to your way for clues that you are disliked. Do not bother about those hate comments by giving them undue importance. Do not worry about it if you do nothing. You cannot please everyone not to give hate speech about you. You cannot escape from their negative comments from every now and then. However, you can just leave those behind. Do not waste your time trying to wonder how the others see you. Learn to take such comments in your stride and live life on your own way. Let go of those useless comments in order to live life in peace.
There are several tips to learn about paying less attention. First, find the reasons why you need to care so much about what really in someone’s mind is. As I have mentioned above, there is no use to wonder what the others think of you. Second, identify several things which can make your situation worse. If you talk to someone, just focus on the good words. If they criticize you, just listen to the constructive criticism. Try to convince yourself to not swallow the hate comments. Third, start letting go those unnecessary things out of your mind. Let go of what happened to you and what did not. Let go of the life you wish you would live. It is better to learn how to let go and being careless of unnecessary things which just going to make you overthink and lack of confidence. Learn to let go will make you realize that you have too much on your plate. By letting those things off, you will be more productive. You will also feel less worry. There is no point holding bad thoughts when things go wrong or people act differently to you. Letting go will loosen you from these thoughts and help you understand not to expect people have the same thought like you. Besides, letting go will make you be more yourself. You will not be someone whose personality based on the desire of anyone but yourself.
Furthermore, you can take your time towards improving yourself and become the best version of you. Think what kind of person you want to be. Is that really you wanting that or someone else leading you to be like that? No one knows what you really need better than you. Do not let anyone have a finger in the pie of your improvement. Do not ask someone else how to handle yourself, just ask yours. How you feel is not something someone gets decide for you. If you feel like you have made a wrong decision, it is okay. The things happening to you will always be working for you. Let go of what happened and make peace with what did not. Convince yourself that not everything last forever. Wrong decisions and failure will always grow something in you which will make the better version of you.
As you mature and grow wiser, you realize what you need to hold onto and which one to let go of. A big part of carrying your best self forward is knowing what you do not need to carry forward. Leaving all those painful and uncomfortable situations are exactly a step forward. Growing and life changing can be hard sometimes. Some things are not supposed to happen in your life, but they are meant to be. The hardest part of evolving and growing is letting go of what was and moving forward with something untried.
When you stop expecting life to be perfect, and you can come to terms with hate comments and negative speech, you have grown and matured enough. It means you already accept your life from now and then. You will live your life with no negative vibes inside. In the future, if you look back on your life, you will find yourself laughing at certain situation how you held something so tightly and it became toxic. Great things will always happen to you in many different forms. Always remember that every cloud has a silver lining. That is why you do not need to focus on bad things that happened to you.
Letting go does not mean that you do not care about someone or something at all. It is just realizing that the only one you can control is yourself. Being care to other people is a positive thing to do, but sometimes you need to filter which one is your chair and which one is not. You also need to realize that people do not care to you as much as you think. It is normal that people do not care about you. It is normal not to care about them too. It is not possible to control other people’s perceptions of yourself. However, it is possible not to listen what the others say about you or what they want you to do. Do not ever let someone else’s voice come out of your mouth as the reason you cannot have what you want. Do not put your happiness on hold for something or someone that is not holding onto you. Life weaves together its own balance of gain and loss. Therefore, you are the one who is responsible for every choice you have made in your own life.
Revised Version
This writing has been published in a book titled “A Hodgepodge of Exploratory Writings” in 2021 with the original title of “Not My Chair, Not My Problem” on pages 27–31.
