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In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share my advice about being yourself no matter what people think. Sometimes it can be difficult to turn off the feeling of being judged all the time. Whether you have a scrutinizing mother-in-law or a micro-managing boss, there are plenty of people in our lives who we feel are watching our every move. I can’t tell you how many times my wife has told me a story about some drama that happened at work in which she used the phrase, “And it made me look bad when I didn’t agree.” Now, it would be easy for me to say to her, “No one is judging you for going against the grain,” or “Who cares what people think anyway?” but it’s not that simple. Because the fact is it’s hard to rise above the opinions or indifference of others.
As a teacher, though, I’ve had to harden my skin because there are few more nitpicky audiences than a room full of high school students. In fact, I can remember when I was in school, we would snicker quietly about the math teacher who kept getting chalk all over his pants or speculate on the marriage status or extracurricular activities of a particularly glamorous drama teacher. I mean, I’ve had students who were brazen enough to ask me if I was gay simply because I’m soft-spoken and enunciate my words. Students will make up stuff about their teachers, and over the years I’ve learned not to worry about and in fact flat out ignore their opinions on personal matters. It’s simply none of their business.
Now I wasn’t always successful in my attempts to ignore student scrutiny. When I first started working in my current position, I became known to the students as the guy who would sometimes randomly enter their classroom to help their teacher who was having trouble with their computer. No big deal – that’s part of my job. So one day, I was walking in the hallway past an open classroom, and one of the young men called out in his best imitation of a cracking, nerdy voice, “I fix com-PYOO-ters!” causing his classmates to erupt with laughter.
This same student repeated his performance the next day outside the cafeteria, and I snapped. “Come with me,” I told the student. “We’re going to the office.” After repeating my command a couple of times while his friends giggled, he finally submitted and followed me to the front office. Now, I didn’t actually take him to an administrator, I just basically reamed him out in the mailroom telling him, yes, I did fix computers, and did he feel the need to taunt me with my job description again? He agreed to cool it, and I sent him back to the lunchroom.
Well, guess what? For the next few MONTHS, I was constantly bombarded with the same sing-songy phrase, “I fix computers!” from other students who had heard the story of what had happened and who wanted to get a reaction out of me. I mean, it was stupid, right? But that didn’t matter. I had shown that it bothered me to be basically called a nerd, and the kids were not going to let it be. I was a young teacher in my twenties and had not yet earned their respect or garnered any sort of intimidating presence of authority. I was an easy target.
But the fact is if I had just ignored the first guy, it probably would have gone away by itself in a day or two when his friends got tired of it. Instead, I drew attention to my discomfort, and his peers jumped on the taunt like sharks who smelled blood. That was a hard lesson to learn that day, but over the years it has become easier and easier to ignore student scrutiny.
Perhaps it’s not quite as easy to shut out the opinions of your contemporaries. Remember the fun fact that I started the podcast with about the history of the purse? Have any of you guys out there been asked to hold your wife’s purse in a department store or a diaper bag when your wife is carrying the baby? Has this phenomenon threatened your sense of manhood such that you feel judged by the men around you who you feel are looking at you with at best amused sympathy or at worst outright disdain?
Obviously, this particular situation has lately taken on a more humorous image than true embarrassment, especially as gender roles these days are being looked at as outdated themselves in many cases. And here’s a confession I have to share: I carry a bag. Some jokingly refer to it as a murse or a man-bag, or they try to distance it from its purse cousin by calling it a satchel or messenger tote or whatever. But let’s face it – it’s a purse. And you know what? I don’t care; I carry it proudly! I have a lot of stuff to carry. I’ve got my wallet, my phone, my Kindle, my charging cables, my various membership cards, chapstick, tissues, checkbook – you know, all the stuff women carry in their purse! I mean why should men have to sacrifice being able to easily access stuff they need when out and about? I got over the stigma long ago, and I doubt anybody around me even notices I’m carrying my bag anymore.
And that’s the thing. Do YOU go around noticing people who didn’t shave that morning or who are having a bad hair day or who have a pimple on their nose? No, of course not! And no one is noticing your appearance insecurities either! For Spring Break this year, we went to visit my brother-in-law in Austin, and as we stood in the airport security line before our super-early flight, my daughter noticed I was wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe. In my bleary-eyed stupor I simply hadn’t noticed when we left the house that morning, and since I only had otherwise packed sandals and the weather turned out to be unseasonably cool that week, I was stuck wearing the mismatched pair the whole time. And except for the initial humor of the situation, no one cared, including me. In fact, I forgot about it almost immediately.
Here’s what I learned.
Life is too short to care about what other people think. It’s much more important to be yourself and be comfortable in your own skin than it is to conform to what others deem appropriate for you. Different people have different opinions, and if we’re constantly worrying about how we come across to others, we’ll never truly be expressing our authentic selves and letting our personalities shine.
Do you want to dye your hair pink? Go right ahead and to heck with those biddies at church! Thinking of pulling out that homemade cosplay for your next fan convention even though you’re worried it might not be as nice as costumes bought online? You totally should! Let your amateur flag fly proud – people are not judging you; in fact, they will appreciate your efforts.
Once we accept that we are who we are and that people just need to take each other at face value, it becomes a lot easier to respect each other’s opinions, appreciate each other’s differences, and hold to the lesson from Matthew 7:1 – “Judge not, lest you be judged.”
I’m Michael Ahr, and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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