Day after day, we deliberately accept the venom of poisonous people into our minds, leading to devastating consequences. Once there, this venom annihilates our self-confidence, destroys our self-esteem, and floods our thoughts with anger, hatred, and resentment. The cause? Taking things too personally. The cure? Living without the influence of other people’s opinions. Are you taking things personally? Are you letting other people’s opinions and behaviors define your true self?
We go through life as if we have a target hanging from our necks. We feel like inoffensive deer grazing peacefully in the woods, surrounded by heartless hunters waiting for the perfect moment to pull the trigger. Suddenly, that moment comes. The world freezes, the clock stops, and bang! A perfect shot, straight to our heads. We lie motionless, presumed deceased. But as the world begins to move again, we breathe—we are alive, we survived. Yet the scars bleed, the pain increases, and suddenly, the pain turns into anger, and the anger begins to rule our lives. Resentment becomes our ally.
The problem is that our constant need for acceptance and our desperate search for everyone’s approval have become necessities to maintain an acceptable reputation in society. This reputation, or our own perception of ourselves, is severely affected when we find ourselves the target of someone’s attacks. That is the main reason we take things so personally—because that person prevents us from achieving our goal of being accepted by everyone in our society. It damages our ego, diminishes our self-confidence, and puts us on the edge of collapse.
“What other people think of you is not your business. If you start to make that business your business, you will be offended for the rest of your life.” – Deepak Chopra
Therefore, taking things personally and unhappiness are connected. But is there such a thing as everlasting happiness? There are many keys and ideas about happiness, but this question remains an existential doubt for most of us. However, through the years, we have discovered important keys to unhappiness. One of them is taking things personally. When we do this, we expose ourselves, placing ourselves in a position of extreme vulnerability and putting our own happiness in someone else’s hands. When we take things personally, we condemn ourselves to a life of misery and resentment, sabotage our capabilities to achieve our dreams and goals and deny ourselves the possibility of a happy life.
When someone attacks you in any way, it’s never truly personal with you but rather with themselves. You can only take things personally when you have attacked or hurt them first. For example, let’s imagine you insult someone’s mother. You can take it personally if that person punches you in the face. Nevertheless, it always comes down to the fact that someone’s reaction and behavior toward others is never truly about them but about themselves, no matter if they think they have an excuse for acting that way.
“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.” — Miguel Ruiz.
Not taking things personally from the people around you is not something we can learn overnight, but rather an everyday commitment. However, nothing is more rewarding than gaining that level of freedom and becoming immune to other people’s opinions, criticism, judgments, and aggression. The real truth is that other people’s behaviors and attitudes toward you do not define or categorize you, do not damage your reputation, and do not condemn you—but rather do all of that to them.
Every action and behavior, every thought and opinion of others, is only a reflection of their own souls. They do not indicate who you are but rather who they are. Therefore, do not take things personally, and you will have found the key to your own personal development. You will broaden your limitations and declare, loudly and fearlessly, to the world: “I do not seek to fit in, I do not seek to be accepted, nobody defines me nor limits me. I am immune to the poisonous souls that seek to destroy me. I am an utterly and completely free soul.”
Learn not to take things personally. Release your soul from the need for everyone’s approval, become immune to other people’s criticism, opinions, and behaviors, and you will have discovered one of the keys to success and personal development.
