You Are Not Responsible For Their Feelings

What if you stopped living by what you think others think about you? we should live by our true identity instead of the fear of ruffling feathers. It takes courage to act from your values even when it makes people unhappy. When you show up with integrity and mean no harm, other people’s reactions say more about their own history than your worth.

It's time to stop tiptoeing to please people, set boundaries, and keep chasing your goals without asking for permission. 

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Transcript

Anthem Of Chasing Goals

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Losing myself and finding my strength came to the conclusion that I want it all. Feeling that pressure of tryna do better. I wanna reach heights, but too scared to fall. Too scared of failure, way more scared of feeling regret. I'm not even trying, that's terrifying. I understand that chasing my goals, I bury my clocks because it takes time. I gotta go. I already know if I wanna grow, you reap what you sow. That be the case. Planting my seeds and water my base. Yeah, I make mistakes. Yeah, I know you grow in your garden, but watch for the snakes. The people that act like you're crazy, but trying this, they far away. They don't think it's possible, I think it's possible. That is just hate. If they hate themselves, cause they on the shelf. While you create a life that you love. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A life that you love. Loving the fact to improving yourself. Decided that you would not settle. Decided that you got the drive to do it. The road got bumped in your foot on the pedal. You go up a level, you turn up whenever. It's time for you to go put in that work. I know my work, huh? I know it ain't gonna be easy, yeah. I know it hurt, but thing is for sure. Yeah. Until it put me in this earth. Before I ride in that hearse, I'm chasing my goals. I'm chasing my goals. Loving the fact to improving yourself. You're putting the cutter. I'm fixing my goals. Alright, and welcome back to another episode. Like I always say, if you are on YouTube, go ahead and like and subscribe to my channel. Like right now, go ahead, push the button. It costs you nothing. If you are on the podcast platform, please leave a review. Those things help me out a whole lot. Also, become a monthly supporter of the show. You can choose a monthly amount. It can either be three, five, eight, or ten dollars, and you can cancel at any time. But why would you ever do that? Let's go ahead and jump in today. Let's talk about how you are not in control of other people's experiences in life. We're going to talk about other people's experiences and the role you play in them. And this is important because as humans, we learn or have come to believe who we are based on what we perceive other people's perceptions of us is. We build our identity off ourselves based on how we perceive other people perceiving us and how they act around us. We build our identity based on other people. And I've said this quote before, and I say it again. It's from Charles Cooley, and it says, I'm not who you think I am. I'm not who I think I am. I am who I think that you think I am. Let me say that again. It's kind of hard to comprehend. I'm not who you think I am. I'm not who I think I am. I am who I think that you think I am. Which is what I'm saying, how we build our own identity based off what we perceive other people's perception of us to be. Which is crazy to think about, right? We try to and sometimes become what other people think of us. And it's important to become aware of this so we can break away from this thought process and become our true selves. Can we become who we want to become? And I want you to think about this statement somebody's reaction to you, whether it's good or bad, has nothing to do with you. Someone's reaction to you has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with what's happening internally with that person. So let me first say this. I'm not saying that you can go out and be a jerk to people and say, well, hey, that's on them. They got something going on inside them that made them react like that. It's their fault. They didn't react the way, they didn't have to react the way they reacted. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if you're a good person and acting out of a good place in everything you do, and you're true to yourself, and you're not a person who wants to harm other people, other people's reaction to you literally has nothing to do with you. And this thought process needs to be one that helps us step into the truest version of ourselves. And here's why. So many people in life won't do what they truly want to do because they want to they don't want to ruffle any feathers, they don't want to stir the pot. They want to stay invisible so they don't get those negative and sometimes positive reactions from other people. So many people just want to stay invisible because they don't want people to react to them good or bad. But understand that that a person's opinion of you has nothing or has everything to do with how they view the world. Every single person perceives the world differently, right? That's a fact. We all see the same world, but at the same time it's different for each and every one of us. And our perception of the world is from all the countless experiences we have from the time we're born to right now. Every single thing that ever happens to us and around us, right? Okay, so here's a couple examples. So let's say you're into this man or this woman and you like them, and y'all went on a date, and you felt like they were interested in you, interested in you. The date went good, it felt good, then all of a sudden they start acting distant. Then out of nowhere, the date just took a complete turn, and the date ends, and they don't call you back. They're not calling you back or not being interested in you has nothing to do with you. For one, it can be so many different things. It might be that they've been cheated on, had their heart broken, or they're hesitant to get into another relationship again, or maybe all they wanted was sex, and they can tell that you ain't that kind of person, right? And that's not what you're looking for. Maybe you remind them of their ex. Maybe they're super loyal to zodiac signs and they made up in their minds that your sign just don't work with whatever their sign is. It could be so many different things, for one. And two, none of that has anything to do with you. None of it. And having been in those situations, we know it can make you think, okay, well, what did I do wrong? Is something wrong with me? Was it something I said? But in reality, this person is reacting to you based on all the other experiences they've had in their life. Maybe it's a protection mechanism for them. Maybe they're projecting something on you. Maybe their intentions just wasn't honest. And a lot of times, they ain't even thinking about these things consciously, right? It's just baked into the back of their minds and making them behave a certain way or think certain things or feel a certain way and they don't even realize it. So not only does their experiences in life have nothing to do with you, the way they perceive you has nothing to do with you either. It has everything to do with how they perceive the world. Another example, and something I know you can relate to, is somebody who is just angry, just mad about something all the time. A lot of angry folks in this world, right? And the thing is, ain't nobody born angry, right? There ain't no such thing as an angry infant. Yeah, a baby will cry, but babies don't come into the world just pissed off at people, at life. For the most part, you don't see a bunch of frowning, mad ass babies, right? And so some people are just angry though, right? And maybe they were raised by an angry parent, or now that's how they react to the world, or that and they get triggered into anger real easy, right? There's some sort of trigger, something that sets them off. And the fact is, you can have the same exact thing happen to two different people, same thing. One person can be very calm and have no reaction at all. The other person can get pissed off and blew up about it. And what that says or proves is that you are not in charge of that person's experiences. They are, whether they realize it or not. So don't hold yourself back in situations in life because you worried about other people's experiences. You can't control their experiences. Their reaction to whatever may be triggering them or whatever may be an issue, it's all based on their past experiences. And you just simply don't have nothing to do with that. All you can do is be the good person that you are, be about positivity, do what serves you, knowing that, hey, however they feel, that's how they feel. So what you should absolutely not do is kind of tiptoe or maneuver in a way that to make sure that you don't piss people off or to not offend people or to not get the quote unquote haters. Because that's gonna be impossible. It really is. As positive as I am, as much as I try to inspire people, as much as I stay in my own lane, and I'm a person who is never about drama, I still have a handful of people who don't like me. And a couple of them don't like me that I I can see why. Meaning I can literally point to a reason, even though it still has nothing to do with me. But I'm like, okay, yeah, I can see why they wouldn't like me. And I'm not gonna go into details about that, but still, not my fault. And then you got some folks who don't like me, that they don't even have a valid reason to dislike me. Like, okay, I'm shocked to know that you don't like me. Like, okay, really? They don't like me? Okay, again, fine. That's okay. I don't have anything to do with that. And so when somebody is looking at you or perceiving you, right, how they perceive you, they are looking at the world through their own personal lens and all of these countless experiences of life that they've had, and it's from that that they get their perception of you. So think of this example. You ever been around a dog or seen a dog who's been abused a whole lot, right? Kind of a sad example, but that dog who is abused, it's very timid. They shy away from people. If you come towards it, they probably gonna run away or try to make them say it was really, really small, right? You can see the fear in them, right? And even though you never hit this dog, probably never even been around this dog, the way they see life, the experiences they've had from other people, it makes this dog act this way towards you. And you have nothing to do with it. Use this same rationale the way people either perceive you or the way they want to place the burden of their experiences on you, they are reacting to certain stimuluses from their past. And once again, be a good person, be somebody who is positive and brings good into the world, and at the same time, understand that you are not in control of other people's experiences. And the sooner you realize this, the sooner you can be free to live a life that's true to yourself. Okay. Now that I got that out of the way, and I said it in several different ways, I'm gonna flip it on you. And you may not like what I hear, you know, you might not like what you're going to hear, but I'm gonna say it anyway and keep it 100, keep it real with y'all. Just like you ain't in control of other people's experiences, then other people ain't in control of yours. So if you blaming folks for how you feel, how you react, that ain't how it goes. Just like if somebody gets mad about something and has a negative reaction and it's not because of you, if you get angry at somebody else, it's not on them, it's on you. And that may be a hard pill to swallow or hard to accept or believe. And at first, I don't want to hear that shit either. Right? But let's dive in a little more. How you react is completely in your hands, and it might feel like you might not have control over it, but you absolutely do. And let me share this quote with you. It's from a man, an author, and psychologist named Victor Franco. And he wrote this book right after the Holocaust. He went through the Holocaust and was in a Nazi prison camp. And in his book, he talks about his experiences in this prison camp and how bad it was and how it shaped how he looked at things, about the meaning of life, about how the people who had meaning in their life ended up living a lot longer in these camps than the ones who had no meaning. And here's the quote that I came across. It says, Between stimulus and response is a space. And in that space is our power to choose our response, and in our response lies our growth and freedom. Let me say it again. Between stimulus and response is a space. And in that space is our power to choose our response. And in our response lies our growth and our freedom. So between something happening to you and you reacting to it, it's a little bit of space, right? Very small space, probably a half a second, fraction of a second, split second of time, right? There's a split second between something happening to you and then you reacting to it. And if you can master that space, if you can master who you are within that space to not react negatively, then you have mastered your life. That is self-mastery. So you can't blame other people for how you react to them. Just like people can't blame you for their reactions, you can't blame them for yours. You always have a choice of how you decide to respond. And I know it may not feel like you have a choice, but you do. It ain't easy. We know that. Feel like it's damn near in your DNA, like it's just human nature to react, right? That's not necessarily true. It's human nature to have the feeling, to have the thought, but what you do with it is completely your choice. And this is the epitome of self-development, right? Things happen to us in life. Let's say something happened to you years ago, and you still pissed off about it right now, and you still hurt by it, or it's still negatively affecting you mentally. Maybe you have a negative reaction every time you think about it. And that one event is still affecting you even though it happened years ago. Personal development, self-development is having something happen to you, and now it only affects you for a few months instead of a year. That's a positive, right? It's still shorter, a shorter time to get over it. Then you work on yourself some more, and this work takes a long time. It does not happen overnight, but it takes a long time. It takes years, actually. So you work on yourself, and other things happen to you, and now they only affect you for a few weeks. Now they only affect you for a few days. Then something happens and you pissed off for only a day. Then something happens, you're pissed off for only an hour, right? And in between these times, you keep working on yourself, right? Then something happens and you're only pissed off for five minutes. You work on yourself even more. Then something happens, and then there is no pissed off. You have no more response, right? That is what self-mastery is. What that is showing you is that nothing externally, right? Externally, anything that's outside of your mind or your body can disturb your peace in this place. And I know it may sound like I'm trying to get you to be Gandhi or something, it may even sound impossible to get to that mental space, but strides, strides can still be made. They have to be. Because you better believe, as we're working on ourselves, we're gonna be changing for the better. And unfortunately, a lot of folks around us just won't be doing the same. And there will be many moments where your energy, your mindset, it just won't align. Friction is gonna happen. You're gonna look, you're gonna look at things differently. You're gonna have different perspectives, you're gonna be enlightened in ways than not everyone around you will be. And somebody that's gonna say or do something that will piss you off, or vice versa. Things that never used to piss you off might start pissing you off. And that generally comes with any kind of growth, right? And so when these moments come, it's gonna be so damn important to protect your peace because your peace is way more important than most of the bullshit the world has to offer you. Right? All the negativity, all the ways people in your life will inadvertently and sometimes purposely hurt you or piss you off. And I hate to quote a president, but there's a quote, but there's a lot of truth in what Eleanor Roosevelt said. He says, No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. If somebody says something to you that's messed up and it make you feel bad, and you decide to let that make you feel that way, well, you decided to let that make you feel that way. You decided to listen to what that person said and make you feel bad about yourself. You decided to take that thing to heart and make you feel less than. And I know that may sound impossible to not let some somebody's words affect you, because words, even though they are just that, is just words, they can't really be hurtful. But the place we have to strive to get to is to be so mentally sound with our own selves, to have so much mental peace, to understand that the way other people perceive us literally has nothing to do with us, that their words just don't work negatively on us. This is the space between stimulus and response, right? If you're trying your best in life and taking actions towards you becoming the best you can and to get the most you can out of life in a positive way, then you're not responsible for other people's reactions. And those people who are just blindly walking through life and allowing any and everything to disrupt their peace and allowing negativity to seep into their lives and to who they are, then the same is true. They ain't responsible for your reactions, you have to be. And no, it won't be easy, but with some work and ownership of your actions and reactions, you can protect that inner peace. So again, I said it so many times, I'm gonna say it again. You are not responsible for people's reaction to you, and other people are not responsible for your reactions to them. So that's what I got for you today. If you like this episode, man, please share this on your social media. Make sure you tag me in it. Uh, also share with a friend or family member who you think would uh benefit from hearing this message. Uh also become a monthly supporter of the show. You can choose the amount, the monthly amount. It can either be three, five, eight, or ten dollars. You can counsel at any time, but why would you ever do that? Let's go ahead and get to this music. The song I got for y'all today is They Selling Crack. Let's ride out. You know they say words can kill. They sellin' crack on the corner. I grew up like this. And if a picture is worth a thousand of them, they sell a crack on the corner. God bless the artist. I grew up like this. Picture me perfect. Picture me perfect. Fuck what they talkin', I'm already perfect. I do it on purpose. Yeah. Call her what you want, I don't got service. She callin' too much. Just see me in person. Girl, bye. I like my phone dry. I've never been thirsty. Ain't seen me in a while. I'm probably working. Uh-huh. Goin' home for my last name. Tryna make it a brand name. It's Dodge. And I'm lit all summer long. I don't need no ashtray. I don't need no ashtray. For who am I to tell another man how to make his own money? It's getting fuck out here. You don't wanna walk out here, fuck minimum wage, and ain't no jobs out there. No, nigga standin' on a cona, cocaine number one. And life is all about choices. You only get what you born with, ain't no two shoulders. With the wave of a boulder, the camera ain't ballin' over. My classmates look like soldiers. Cause they got them on the guns. Yo, life lookin' way different, like you was born with glaucoma. Cause you don't see that shit. Nah. If the sister fellin' a convict the felon or the police killin', what you tell him when he a kid. Who influenced my crack? You can ask my big brother Cal about that. My big brother out about that. And niggas was my role miners. And them niggas had that crack. Wanna smoke weed just like them. Thirteen years old, like yeah, nigga passed that sack. Break it down, pull it up, smoke it up. First time I smoked, I choke it up. My father was bare, I'm blowing up. But my happy home was broken up. Mama said, fuckin' we movin' out. Yeah, she rather be broke as fuck. Try to be the man, I hold enough. I give my pops some props. No, he didn't do everything right. Still, he was always in my life. We ain't never have to worry about no lights. When your best friends wanna bowl out like glow trotters, they lookin' up to their role models, who selling crap with no problem. That's why whenever your mama said, When that street light come home, your ass better be home. Cause they sellin' crack on the corner. I grew up like this. They sellin' crack on a corner. I grew up like this. Yeah. They sellin' crack, they sellin' crack, he's sellin' crack and she using it. His family ain't cool with it. Her family got used to it. He got a burden, he flew with it. He knows just what to do with it. Take it straight to the kitchen. On the stove, make it stew with it. Ain't no money in the classroom, so we dropped out of school with it. The bad schools get the worst teachers, and they don't know what to do with it. He gets labored by society. Yeah, they call him a hooligan. Cause they think we all animals, and the cops are the zoo keepers. I wish I could fly, cause I would say bye, I'm going to Jupiter. I'm way too close, I done got numb, I'd have got used to it. We murder the most oldest death, oldest funerals. Cause they got beef and keepin' it hot like aluminum. Tryna get closer to Jesus. I wanna pray in Jerusalem. I see the devil influences, I think the devil recruiting us. I'm tryna get closer to Jesus. I wanna pray in Jerusalem. I see the devil influences, I think the devil recruiting us. I'm tryna get close, I'm tryna get close. Pour some liquor for all my dead ones. Let's make a toast. I dunno ice, I done won't coke. I'm tryna get thrown. I'm here today, but tomorrow I could be a ghost. So let's do the most. My favorite rapper talk about dope. He got them O's. Sometimes I wonder if he know, or if he don't. That the youth is who we influence the most. Look how they boast. Instagram and Facebook post. They think it's a joke. I think about when I was a teen, 13 years old. He lived across the street. That was my dog, that was my woe. His big brother was like my brother. He's selling does. His brother was a hood nigga, had a mouth full of gold. His brother got in the fight, showed the hood, he ain't no hood. He won that fight, fuckin' right. You better let him know. But they had a revolver, and not a revolvin, no. He let that revolver blow. Was hard to see him go. He won that fight, but lost his life. He got the call later that night, and my heart hit the flow. I was scared to go to the funeral. Mama made me go. Was scared to see him cry. He couldn't keep it dry. I just wanted us to fly, so we can be closer to Jesus. I wanna pray in Jerusalem. I see the devil influences. I think the devil recruiting us. I'm tryna get closer to Jesus. I wanna pray in Jerusalem. I see the devil influencers. I think the devil recruiting us. Cause they sell the crack on the corner. I grew up like this. They sell a crack on the corner. I grew up like this. Yeah. They said it crack. They send a crack.