Only when you do not know yourself, does the opinion of other people become important.

How important is the opinion that another party has of you?

Did you respond that it depends on whom that person is?

I believe that most would see it through that filter yet, at some point, if we are fully confident in knowing whom we truly are, then the rest of the world awakens to that without our having to say anything whatsoever.

Opinions are like rectums, everyone has one.

But that, in and of itself, does not make that opinion valid.

An opinion is entirely filtered through the mind of the person who formulated it, or is echoing it from a formulation they have heard from someone else.

When we are vulnerable to that degree of uncomfortable scrutiny, we might discover how susceptible we might be to surrendering certain qualities of autonomy in our lives in favor of rendering a positive impression with someone else.

We might sacrifice various qualities about whom we truly are, in lieu of receiving some form of third-party validation.

In trying to assess how or why such an abstract variable could matter enough to cause variable depths of personal sacrifice, we would have to think about how and why we are so in need of any validation other than that of our own.

This is not to say that we do not have plenty of room to grow, to learn, to evolve, to figure things out and ultimately emerge as the person we are hoping to become.

Rather, it means that at some point, we ought to find the proper confidence and life experience to enable us the ability to validate our own self-worth and hold that to be true, regardless of any opinion of another party.

Happy Thursday!