Unmasking those who are Important to You
Navigating from unsettling opinions to cherished connections
Thanks for opening my letter again. Here we navigate through complexities of human emotions and come to some point we can find peace in. Human beings like you help me keep going. As I feel a little valued, I want to increase it. But what about those who didn't? What about those who never values us?
There are people in our lives, who we really hate because of how they react about the things we care about. You too have a few of them. We spend hours thinking about their response and they simply ignores all the details we put. We want to punch them. But we want to act like a good human being, so we don't punch.
But there is something else that needs to be noticed. We are more disturbed by the negative response or ignorance of people whom we expected a good response than the total number of good response we got.
Now this is not right. Are you following me?
We tend to make a few people more important to us than everyone else. And their opinions matters to us more than anything. They become deciding factors. But you and me both would agree that, this is not right.
Okay let me give you a few examples that you would relate.
One is, there are a few people in your life, very few, but they are there, who will try their best to ensure that you feel good. You feel appreciated. But instead of feeling good, you would tend to spend your time discussing with them the problems you have about the people you don't like.
Another is, you are working on a project you are excited about. Now what your ten friends said about this project would totally means less to you as compared to what your parents or spouse think about it.
I wrote this letter up to this point. Then I started thinking, may be it is just me who is so sensitive about the opinions of people not my readers. So I should begin to write something meaningful for them.
You got my point ? What about those who would really are like this letter? That was the point of beginning this newsletter to write for me and people like me.
This negativity overshadows the positivity. This is where it becomes wrong as now it is killing my creativity.
Okay, let us navigate through it.
So what is happening:
"[Negative opinions] of few [important people],
[Impacts us more] than the total positivity"
The problem is in one of the three things.
Negative opinions
Important People
Impacts us more
Let's go through them one by one
Negative opinions : Humans beings are smart enough to be well aware of the fact that not everyone would have a good opinion.
Impact us more : This is a matter of sensitivity. If I stop feeling more, I will become a stone. I am a sensitive person. I feel more and I want to feel more. That is what differentiate me from machines. I will not practice making myself insensitive and numb just to handle a few people.
Important people : This is where the problem should be. Obviously because we purposely skip the above twos!
Trust me, I do have a question. How do we categorize a few people as "Important People" while others not?
Just because they have matching blood, or they have historically spent more time with you, or they have more control over life, makes them really important for you?
This was the first category.
But what about the second category? You don't know them? Let me tell you.
What about those few who waited for you on the lunch table at office and didn't eat till you came.
What about those who made is sure to buy two tickets and cancelled their movie because you can't go.
What about those who took care of the shade of blue you like more for your jeans.
What about those who didn't like the new cafe because you don't like it's ambience.
The beautiful people they are.
But we don't consider them important. Slowly they also stops considering you important. It's not your fault, we all simply do.
Worse is, we use the second category people to discuss our passion to make things right with the first category of people.
All this occurs with a simple misjudgement.
"Who is really important to you?"
It took me a mug of tea to ponder about. But I have come up with a definition:
There are people who were purposely doing their best to make you know again and again that they are impressed by you, they appreciate your work, what you feel is important to them. These are the people whom you share things without ever feeling judged or trying to make an impression. You just know they would not judge you.
I believe those are the important people.
Even if you are sensitive, even if you take things negatively too quickly, these people were there to hang in their and make sure they clear all the confusions.
These people deserves a justice.
Instead, we morally confuse ourselves and make wrong people important. No. They are not important for our feelings, rather, they are a situation that needs to be handled.
The second category people are important.
It's simple :
"Those people are important to you who makes you feel important for them."
Its equal exchange.
Put your morality in context. The rest of the people, does not deserves your importance because of fairness. You should not be unfair with those who find your importance.
It is just like love. When you love someone, you don't sit and feel yourself, you make them feel.
And those are important people.
Let us be fair and divide these people into two categories.
As now you already know that the first category people don't consider you important YET, and thus not important SO FAR, so you don't need to get UPSET by them either. So you won't get angry either. You won't consider them punching.
And there will be more peace overall!
This was the point I wanted to make for which I wrote this so far.
Just by putting your expectations on the right side, you simply removed all the complexities.
Now you simply know that it is a nature of a few people to make you feel negative and you don't care about their words much because it is fair, you have decided not to give them importance either, and they also don't give you much and you both don't care. You are like known strangers. And thus no need to get angry.
I am stressing it again and again to not to fall into the confusion of morality. The fair thing here is to make those important for you who put effort to make you feel important.
I am not upset anymore. I didn't made myself insensitive, I simply made them less sensual. Ha ha ha.
Or else, this letter would not have ever written.
Thank you very much for being on my second category and reading this letter.
Thanks a lot for making me feel important.