Taming the Mammoth: Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think

Posted on October 12, 2015

The first day I was in second grade, I came to school and noticed that there was a new, very pretty girl in the class—someone who hadn’t been there the previous two years. Her name was Alana and within an hour, she was everything to me.

It became suddenly relevant a few months later, when during recess one day, one of the girls in the class started asking each of the boys, “Who do youuu want to marry?” When she asked me, it was a no-brainer. “Alana.”

The second I answered, the heinous girl ran toward other students, telling each one, “Tim said he wants to marry Alana!” Each person she told covered their mouth with uncontrollable laughter. I was finished. Life was over.

The news quickly got back to Alana herself, who stayed as far away from me as possible for days after. If she knew what a restraining order was, she’d have taken one out.

This horrifying experience taught me a critical life lesson - it can be mortally dangerous to be yourself, and you should exercise extreme social caution at all times.

Now this sounds like something only a traumatized second grader would think, but the weird thing, and the topic of this post, is that this lesson isn’t just limited to me and my debacle of a childhood - it’s a defining paranoia of the human species. We share a collective insanity that pervades human cultures throughout the world: An irrational and unproductive obsession with what other people think of us.

Humans evolved an over-the-top obsession with what others thought of them - a craving for social approval and admiration, and a paralyzing fear of being disliked. Let's call that obsession a human's Social Survival Mammoth.

Click on the link below to read the full article and understand how you should manage your mammoth.


Category(s):Self-Care / Self Compassion, Self-Confidence, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem

Source material from Wait But Why