Life Outside a Trolley- Are the opinions of sheep, making you lose sleep?

Hello famed and unfamed crackerjacks of LinkedIn. Today’s written word has stemmed from several nights of introspection. They say that both lions and wolves, do not concern themselves with the opinions of sheep, and while this may be largely true, I’ve been up at 3am lately, counting these said sheep. Here’s the question I’ve been fixated on when it comes to people’s opinions about me in general, is it that I am being careless or is it that I should care… less?

Now to be honest with you all, I have no idea what the answer to that question is, I’m kind of hoping we can discuss it, because this piece has more questions than answers.?From what I’ve seen so far in this life, people do different things with opinions, comments and general feedback. Some people take it in and become absorbed in the opinions of others while others reject it all together. I’ve seen people go to great lengths to fit in with particular groups under various guises, “I’m going to be at the fore front of a particular movement even though I personally don’t believe in it as this is what I perceive my followers to want from me”. “I am going to insert myself into this group in work, and pretend to agree with this culture, as this is what I perceive will allow me to have a better work relationship with these colleagues. On the other hand, I’ve seen persons go on the defense and outright try to persecute persons and anything associated with those persons due to an opinion or feedback that was disagreeable. “Peter says the timing of my project will lead it to fail, how can he say that, he doesn’t know what he is talking about, or I will sabotage Peter's work”. ?This is a few of what I’ve seen, ?I really don’t need to list the others, because I think you get the picture, but generally in both aspects, the opinions of others are in some way internalized by the person as good or bad, leading them to care too much about the opinion or too little about the opinion which results in actions of them adjusting themselves to either compromise their own core values or saddled them along a path where somewhere along the line their team or loved ones, will lose respect, or simply won’t care enough to bother offering an opinion as they can't accept critical criticism. Our society perpetuates this, on one end obsessed with the notion of sameness based on what the privileged few believe the overall narrative to be and on the other end obsessed with standing out to the point where you begin to question what the real narrative even is. Based on the old saying, I’m either the prey (sheep) or the predator (lion / wolf), but what if I don’t want to be either of these? Is there really a best of both worlds’ scenario?

Generally speaking, I’d describe myself as confident, opinionated, wildly innovative and a do-er. I have never hesitated to get my hands dirty and for the most part I’ve never cared what anyone has had to say about it until quite recently. The universe has been sending many articles my way, all from credible sources, about why I shouldn’t worry about what other people think, why I shouldn’t be concerned with other’s opinions and they’ve all been a source of great conflict. To further this train of thought, I recognize that different perspectives can change the narratives of a single story. I also believe that out of these perspectives other stories are borne, which may or may not lend credit to the depiction of the bigger picture. With that belief said, are the perspectives of my friends, family, colleagues or the general public then therefore warranted opinions that I should factor into my sense of self? If so, how far should I factor these opinions into my core values if I do act on them? These persons are all part of the core audience I interact with, at home, work and social media, would it be careless of me to blatantly disregard what may very well be a well-intended critique? How does one then discern what is well intended versus malicious, and at what point they should internalize or simply care less? After much thought, I’ve decided on a stance, I can’t say if it’s right or wrong, so feel free to comment, I know some portion of society is going to disagree, we can’t win them all. I’ve been told time and time again, see the tree but be aware of the forest, and I think this really fits my thoughts on this topic. I can see, or in this case hear, all the opinions of the people around, but I don’t have to fixate on the details of each tree. The bigger picture is what I want my narrative to be, what my core values are, and what I stand for or represent when I wake up each day. That’s not to say that all the trees aren’t important, they are, afterall they all make up the whole forest, but I don’t have to fit one person or one group of ideals about this forest. The upper trees are almost always going to have a different perspective than the underlying shrub, but they both make up the forest, neither should need to conform nor disregard the other. Likewise, at face value you can’t always tell which trees might be rotten on the inside or spreading disease. I can only trust that my sense of self and the values and principles I embody are strong enough that I am not compelled by the opinions of others, but also not rigid in not being able to discern what may be good feedback disguised as malicious intent or to be open to viewpoints I had never before considered.

The unpopular opinion is maybe we should concern ourselves with the opinion of sheep. Maybe it should also include lions, wolves and everything in between too!?Maybe instead of being careless or caring less about other’s opinions of us, the key is to instead care more. Care more about our opinions of ourselves or how we perceive ourselves in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps in doing so, we can take the opinions of others good or bad and use them as opportunities to improve our own characters in this narrative, rather than reacting, conforming to or ignoring societies’ narrative. The result of an opinion is ultimately what we make of it, so why not make them all into opportunities for growth??