Opinions. Everyone’s got one right? In this day and age, we all live out our lives somewhat in public thanks to social media and are therefore subject to the opinions of SO. MANY. PEOPLE. Some of us, like myself and my fellow bloggers, choose to be a bit more public, but either way we all deal with the opinions of others, especially strangers. And honestly, it can be paralyzing.

I’ve spoken about this before, but one of the reasons it took me so long to start my blog was the fear of what others would think. How would they perceive me? Would I be validated by them in my choices? What if they thought I was silly, or lame, or stupid, etc?

But we all do this. Ever rethought that photo you posted? Obsessed about that thing you said two weeks ago? Wished you had shown up differently? And why do we do this?

Because we care what people think.

As much as we don’t want to, as much as culture demands we have a “I don’t care what anyone thinks” attitude, we do care what people think. How could we not?

Sometimes on social media it can feel like the only way to survive is to have this armor of not caring. It can seem like the only way we can put ourselves out there. (That and not reading the comment section.) But we can’t. If we don’t care, we’ll never get the necessary feedback (positive and negative) we need to grow and move forward. So how do we balance those things?

Last night I watched Brene Brown’s The Call to Courage on Netflix (seriously go watch it right now) and the way she spoke to this exact topic was life changing. One of my favorite quotes was “If you’re not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback. There are millions of cheap seats in the world today, filled with people who would never step foot in that arena, who will never once put themselves out there.” In other words,

you do not have to accept the opinions of everyone who gives them.

If the person giving their opinions on you and your life, is not someone who loves you, supports you, wants to help you, then you do not have to give any weight to that opinion.

Put yourself out there. Do the things that scare you, excite you, make you feel alive, the things you love. “Be brave with your life” as Brene would say. And only give value and time to the opinions of those who know you and love you. To be clear – that feedback won’t always be positive and it shouldn’t be. But it comes from a place of love – not a cheap shot in the comment section on the internet.