However you define yourself, you shouldn't be defined by someone else’s opinion. No one really knows how you feel, or what you’ve been through.
Unless you walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, you can never know how someone else feels. Where we accept another person’s opinion, we shouldn't let their opinions define who we are.
What we think of ourselves is how we go on to define ourselves, and is how we go on to define other people. We may disregard our own opinions, and be defined by what others think. When we fail to think about our opinions, we allow others to define us.
When we are tune in with ourselves, we set aside other people's opinions. Where others may have an opinion, what matters is what we think, our opinions. Once we understand that our opinion is the most important, we free ourselves from caring about what others think.
When we stop caring what others think, we stop looking for validation and as long as we're not hurting anyone it shouldn't matter.
Now that you mention it, I have always allowed others to define me, but considering how I was raised, it's not surprising.
I have wasted most of my life doing just that, with people just like my mother who weren't ever happy no matter what I did. It seems very bizarre to think I can live my own life the way that I want to now.
The only person that I have to work on making happy is myself.
Thanks Randy. Yes 'the only person that I have to work on making happy is myself' - that is right.
I also don't think it's just you. I think there are many of us out there, different things that we deal with who have also been defined. I am not sure how many of us realise we are defined.
However we are defined, it is something we can change for ourselves. Once we begin to recognise those traits, I believe we can set to change them.