What do you think of me?

Or more importantly...do I really care what you think of me?

Not really, no.

It was a very long time before I realised that people never really know what you are thinking. I didn't realise that until I was 21 and I have recently been reminded of it, which brings that day to mind.

I remember being 21 and sitting on a swing in a childrens playground, alone, gently swinging in the summer breeze with a muiltitude of things running through my head, a myriad of varying thoughts. Inside I was having a conversation with my 'other self', my continual inner dialogue was speaking to me loud and clear, conversing with me. As I sat and gently swung on the swing, thinking deeply to myself, I looked up and saw my friend approach. He came and sat beside me.

"Nice day," he said looking out over the empty park
I nodded and smiled, my thoughts evaporating and disappearing on the breeze
"Look" he said and took out a video camera.
He played the video he had just taken of me sat alone on the swing in the empty playground.
"Why did you record that?" I asked as I watched the video
"You looked really peaceful." he replied.

And at that moment, whilst watching the stillness of myself on film I realised that nobody ever knows what you are thinking unless you tell them. The video didn't capture the thoughts in my head, which were so vivid in my mind, the only thing the video captured was me, my outer shell.

People often say that I look serene, as if my mind is at peace, but the more serene I look the more I am actually thinking. I revert into myself, calculating, processing, thinking, but on the outside I look like a serene robot that has been switched to stand-by.

I recently read a blog about someone who was trying to deal with prejudice against them and trying to work out how to deal with it emotionally. I've come across prejudice, simple blonde prejudice, then simple goth prejudice, body prejudice, size prejudice, intelligence prejudice, sex prejudice, skin prejudice etc etc.

As with everybody else on the planet, I have had trauma and turmoil, more than I believe I deserve, but I have got through it and due to this I am immensely proud of myself and I like myself a lot. People never really know the real you, the only way for someone to know the real you is if they 'are' you, therefore people treat you very differently in relation to what 'they' see, not in relation to who 'you' are. What 'they' 'think' of you really is meaningless.

Lots of people with varying appearances and beliefs could all say the same sentence, but how the sentence is understood depends on the individual who is listening, not the person who is speaking. You never truly know what someone else is thinking and even though they appear to be judging you, inside themself they may not be, as people often say different to what they really think.

Nobody is 100% honest.

Over time I have come to the conclusion that you can say and do what you like, somebody somewhere will always be predjuice towards it. People are as individual as they day is long, therefore you never truly know what people are really thinking, just as people never truly know what you are thinking, so why worry about what others think of you?

The only important thing is what 'you' think of you.

Time spent worrying about what others think is time wasted. I am pretty sure you will think about it a lot longer than the other person ever will. Words and actions which may hurt you, aren't worth thinking about as even though you may be hurting, the other person has probably already forgotten about it, because, in all honesty, peoples thoughts are usually quite selfish, so they are probably more intent on thinking about themselves.