By Sofiya Melnyk, Jan. 13th, 2021

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Who Are We?  

Yeah. Without thinking about others’ opinions of us. Without our overthinking. Without the masks we wear on a daily basis to either fit in or sound and look good in front of someone. I started asking myself this more often. Who really am I?  

We often get lost in thinking and overthinking about other’s perceptions of us, how to do this right and that right, just in the end not to really do it right for ourselves but to simply to look good in front of people. Don’t get me wrong, no doubt we all need and want to show our best sides to others, whether it’s to our relatives, some boss or that random guy we are going on the first date with. But, oh well, don’t we all cross the line with our overthinking sometimes? 

I remember going on dates with different people, and yes, people. Surprisingly none of these from my past made it to a normal relationship. Gladly. Anyways, thinking of making the best first impressions on a stranger, sounds familiar right? I thought so. But you aren’t alone on this one, because the person you are trying to make an impression on, most of the time is trying to do the same. Ironic, I know. But it proves the point of how psychologically we function the same in certain situations. In reality, we may never find out the different sides people have to them. You may never know the deepest truth about me nor my life and I may never know the deepest truth about you. Intriguing? Right. As human beings, we are all multifaceted, and every single person that knows us also perceives us differently. While someone may hate you for whatever unknown reason to you, another person thinks about how great you are. This may seem strange and unreal, but that’s how human beings are.

So many of us tend to live our daily lives in the perception of how others see us, not our own character. Or worse, not seeing how valuable and interesting our character is. That’s where most problems of our self-image come from. I know many might say that they couldn’t care less about what anyone will ever think of them even though I highly doubt it. If that’s always the case for you, well then you are a lucky, rare person. Here I am speaking on the behalf of us, lunatic overthinkers who can sense someone’s energy and mood through a text. It may be hard, but I have learned to live with it and work on this problem daily. And so can we all. There is obviously nothing bad with being somewhere close to an empath, in other words, someone who can sense the energy of those around you. But there always should be a line drawn between overthinking and obsessive negative thought patterns. Anything that would make you think negatively and lower your vibration isn’t worth thinking about. Ever. For me, it once came to a point when before I would walk around the street with my iced coffee in my UGGS and think whether people think I look basic, what these guys I am passing by think of me, and why am I drinking iced coffee in January. Or even worse, the after-gym look. Don’t even get me started on that one. 

If you can relate, you can easily work on this issue, because you know why? Nothing is as deep as we think it is. Not measure-wise deep, of course. It’s definitely not as important and significant as we think it is. Why is that? Just because no one cares. Simple as that, yeah. We all live our different busy lives, have daily responsibilities, trying to get through whatever it is, you name it. We don’t even realize it, but every other person is doing almost the same thing called caring about their own lives. Ok fine, some care about other’s lives as well, indeed, but why would you want to be left in twice a puddle of crap ?Makes no sense. So my suggestion would to just let those that care so much about others lives be, you can’t fix people.

In reality, no one even has time to deeply think about someone they are passing, a stranger they see on the bus, or even what you wear daily to school. If there are some people who judge every stranger they pass on the street of New York, well let’s leave it up to them. They would have to live their life not working on improving themselves but bringing others down, and that seems like a miserable life to live.

To get straight to the point, the more you would ask yourself about who you are in your own eyes, not your parents, your siblings, or your friends, the easier your life will be. Wake up alone in your room and look in the mirror the first thing in the morning. Who do you see? How many people do you see? Of course, the answer is -yourself. You see your face, your body, you can feel your heartbeat and see any tiniest details about yourself. Yet, do you see anyone in the background? Near you? In front of you? That’s what I thought. So just imagine waking up and identifying your good and bad traits, looking at yourself from your own eyes, not thinking about what someone else somewhere else thinks of you. Sounds amazing, right? Go ahead, start doing so, and see how little of any shits you will give about other’s perceptions of your persona! Remember, It’s always good to have the ability to look at yourself from the perception of other people, just don’t make this perception fit your character.  

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