None of My Business

I’ve spent a lot of time and energy — many lost hours and years — worrying how people perceived me. Whether or not they liked me. Did I say something weird or was I misunderstood? Was I dressed appropriately? Was that joke weird or did they get it?

I’ve decided that what people think of me, how they view me, or whether they include me or not is none of my business.

It’s none of my business because I can’t do anything about it. Many times I’ve tried to. Tried to fit in. Tried to make up for perceived slights or misunderstandings that I didn’t intend. I tried to make someone else’s view of me my business. It’s not.

Thinking of it this way, that it’s simply none of my business, takes away the power of someone else to decide if I’m acceptable or not. I don’t need to know. I don’t want to know. It makes it easier to walk away from relationships or situations where I’m tempted to change my behavior, my speech, or my appearance to make someone else more comfortable.

It’s easy to ask, “Why do you care what other people think?” and the answer is because I want people to like me. Of course I do. Who wants to be disliked? I would be lying if I said I didn’t care. I do care.

But I should only care if I concern myself with the fact that there’s a problem I may have caused without my knowledge. If I’m not told about it or given feedback in some way, then it’s none of my business. For example, “You just cut that person off when they were talking” is feedback I would need to correct bad behavior. That should be my business. On the other hand, “I don’t like the way you look” is not something I can control (or even know about 99.9% of the time), therefore it is none of my business.

I wasn’t invited to the gathering. None of my business.

Someone thinks I’m too old to start a new career. None of my business.

My yard is too funky. None of my business.

Someone is offended by something I said that wasn’t even about them. None of my business.

When some stranger comments on an Instagram post and I thoroughly disagree with them, it’s none of my business.

I try to follow The Four Agreements. It helps. And one of the agreements is that you should not take anything personally. Which is very similar to saying, “It’s none of my business.”

Because it’s probably not.

Featured image by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash