Nobody's out to get you...

A little sociological rambling...

Do the math: how many minutes a day do you think about other people? Not other people in general but other people specifically? Separate it out from when you are actually in direct contact with them or creeping their facebook. How many minutes a day do you think about other people when you are not with them?

I did the math once. I spent a month with a stopwatch in my pocket. I would click it when I was thinking about someone else, what they were doing, or something they'd done. I included, for the purpose of calculation, times when I was with someone else and we were talking about a third person. So gossip was in.

I put it into a spreadsheet. Did the calculations and it was pretty consistent: 38 minutes a day.

I categorized the thoughts in a journal. About 12% of the time I was thinking about something (just over three minutes) that somebody else was doing. About 22 percent of the time I was thinking about their clothing/appearance/fantasizing. The rest of the time I was thinking about what they were thinking about me.

I was worried about acceptance, or about a mistake, or about love, or about rejection.

At the end of it all I came to this conclusion: nobody's out to get you. People aren't really talking behind your back. In fact, unless you are there or fresh in their mind people aren't thinking about you at all.

There are, of course, times in your life when you think that you are more visible than others - but even then - chances are that you are barely on the thought spectrum of other people.

So here's what I did. I reclaimed that 30 minutes a day by not worrying about what other people were thinking about me - because they probably aren't thinking about me. And if they are - they're probably fantasizing about me - and as long as that doesn't end up in some weird WickedFrost fanfic I'm probably okay with that. (I'm just kidding - write me into whatever fantasy you want).

The results: freedom. Stress drops significantly. Confidence increases substantially. Relationships are closer by far. And drama? I save it for the forums because that's how we roll.

I write this to encourage you - set your mind on things that are excellent and good. The other shit probably isn't real. Because math.

-W