It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own. If a god appeared to us – or a wise human being, even – and prohibited us from concealing our thoughts or imagining anything without immediately shouting it out, we wouldn’t make it through a single day. That’s how much we value other people’s opinions – instead of our own.
~ Marcus Aurelius (Meditations 12.4)
How often do we fall into that trap?
We wear certain clothes, because we don’t want to people to think less of us.
We live in certain areas, to make ourselves look better.
We have a job that we don’t like, because that is what people do.
Yet none of them are really what people need to do.
