 I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinions of others. Marcus Aurelius. You listen to a melody that you like while sitting on the bus, and you want to dance, but you worry about the opinions of others so you don't. You want to voice your opinion on a subject you're very passionate about, but you worry about the opinions of others so you don't. You want to live life on your terms, but you worry about the opinions of others so you don't. A fixation on the opinions of others is a refusal to live life. Why the fuck do you hold the opinions of such high regard? Why limit yourself? Well, it's primal. You're a victim to the evolutionary mismatch. You see, primal man needed to be wary of the opinions of others because it had direct effect on his life. The threat of exile was very real. These days no such threat exists. So why are you worrying about a negative comment on your YouTube video? Why are you worrying about what your neighbors think about your car or your lawn? Why the fuck are you worrying about what your uncle or auntie think about your career choice? Are these people going to be with you on your deathbed? Are these people going to be with you as you reflect on your life? What matters is your opinion on yourself because you walk through this life with yourself. If you value yourself, you value your opinion higher than the opinions of others. Why would you worry about their opinion? Their opinion doesn't matter. Their opinion is based off surfaces, is based off what they can see. They don't know what you can see. They don't have that perspective. You have your own perspective, so worry about your opinion. Your opinion of yourself is the basis of your self-esteem, your self-estimation, which is incredibly important because you walk through your life with that and that has direct effect on the quality of your life. So when I get off the bus and I say thank you to the bus driver, and if he doesn't say thank you back, it doesn't matter to me because I'm saying that because I have a high self-esteem, I have a high regard for myself. My opinion of myself matters more than the response that person is going to give to me. Your actions are a direct reflection of your opinion yourself, of your self-esteem. Every person you meet is testing you, is revealing you to yourself, is revealing to you how you hold it, how you act, how you respond to criticism, how you respond to negativity, showing you how highly you value yourself. So how can you start making the switch into valuing your own opinion over the opinions of others? Well, basically what you need to do is come up with your own personal matrix and you're going to see how well you measure up against these matrix and that's going to be the basis of how well you hold yourself. For example, what your personal matrix could be, how you deal with your relationships in your life. Perhaps you're going to take a more conscious approach that's based off the foundation of open communication in regards to relationships. Maybe people in your life are going to think that this is folly, it doesn't matter because you're basing things off how you view it. Or maybe it's how you conduct your business. Maybe you're going to conduct your business in a more ethical way than your competitors. Perhaps you're going to be a conscious entrepreneur. Maybe this might lead to less profit margins and your competitors might laugh at this. It doesn't matter because you are basing how you do things off your own opinion of yourself and off your own personal matrix. Or maybe in regards to your beliefs, perhaps you choose to pray six times a day, seven times a day. Perhaps you choose to serve no God. Perhaps you choose to live life on your terms. As long as it's aligned with your personal matrix and you're measuring up well against those, you should have a high opinion on yourself and that's how you should approach life.