Granular thinking: July 2007 Archives

Are you in therapeutic mode too much? Listening to everyone's comments as though all of life were milieu therapy?

If you listen to criticism about your weight, your food, your clothing, or anything else, why are you doing it?

All of life is not, after all, group therapy.

People with good self-esteem turn a deaf ear. Politicians, when criticized, turn a deaf ear. Great world leaders who improve things for us all often have to turn a deaf ear.

Normal living involves turning a deaf ear.

Let's look at our problems in a new way--perhaps our problem isn't so much our weight, or our lack of willpower, or some character flaw. Instead, perhaps our problems are really mostly an unwillingness to turn a deaf ear.

Learn to discern what to shut out. If someone you don't much care about criticizes you, or you see some skinny model you don't even know, or even if voices in your own head point out all your flaws, those are the times to turn a deaf ear.

Be discriminating. Pick a few people in your life whose wisdom and judgement you actually trust. Listen carefully to them. But even with those few select, filter what they say through your own best judgment.

That's how confident people live.