Another Hipster Philosophy I Hate

I can't definitively confirm hipsters are responsible for a vast majority of bad quotes that float around the interwebs. But I can say that I'm 97% sure they are actually responsible for these terrorist attacks on the English language. I don't appreciate quotes that are meant to sound deep but lack in realistic grounding. And the deeper they sound, the bigger the name people try to attach to them. Ghandi and Lincoln are the most popular choices of the Internet to attach lame quotes to. It's all utter nonsense. No one attaches their own name to these bad attempts at deep-sounding rhetoric. Many fear sounding like pretentious douchebags. Others fear that no one would give them real credit because they are nobody. They are right on both accounts. 

But I digress. I'm getting way too far away from the subject I wanted to really write about. Yesterday I saw this quote and simultaneously shit my pants and threw up in my mouth a little. It's so fucking stupid that it literally assaults my eyeballs every time I begrudgingly read it. 

"What others think of you is none of your business."

Shut.

The. 

Fuck.

Up.

This advice is well-meaning in a way. It wants to tell you to not care so much all the time about what others think about you. Which is fine. But just say that. Not this sentence that sounds like it's commanding you to not make it your business. 

So I feel like I'm talking in a circle. But that's ok because I'm about to drop some truth bombs all over your shit. My biggest problem with this quote is that it's not realistic. As a human being that lives on planet Earth, it is necessary to care about what others think about you at least a little bit. You have to care a little about what others think about you. For instance, you have to care about what your boss thinks if you want to remain gainfully employed. If your boss thinks you're a lazy piece of shit with a 5th grade education. Wider than that, you probably care a little about what your coworkers think about you. If your coworkers label you as "the crazy one" or "the lazy one" you're screwed. Get ready for a career full of burnout and drinking rubbing alcohol in an abandoned swimming pool. The people you work with have a big potential to make your life hell. If you've ever had a shitty job because your coworkers sucked, you know what I'm talking about. What about your friends? Of course you care about what your friends think. You want to keep them as friends, right? If they think you're a monumental bitch whose company does not enhance the quality of their lives, you don't get to have friends anymore. Even wider than that, you have to care a little about what strangers think. Not to a huge degree because that's just silly. But you don't want to trip in a huge restaurant and look clumsy or yell at your spouse at the grocery store. You don't want to read porn magazines on a bus, or smell like tuna in a crowded mall. You have to care a little because that's how other humans get along with each other. It's how our race has evolved. We have to care a little and cooperate to survive/cope with our crazy world. If that means caring a little what strangers think, fine. I'll take that. 

Of course this quote is designed for our anxiety, over-analytical friends who care what everyone thinks and tries to please everyone in a 10 mile radius. You don't have to care deeply what people think. Just enough to not be the most hated douchebag on the planet.