Who Cares What People Think?
You Can't Control People's Tongues
As cliché as it sounds, at the end of the day, nobody is perfect. We are all human. We stumble, we make mistakes, we say the wrong things, and sometimes we make decisions we later wish we could take back. But all we can really do is grow from what we know, learn from where we have been, and try to do better with what we know now.
Personally, one of my biggest weaknesses has always been that I have cared too much about what people have thought about me. Sure, as the years have gone by, I have gotten a bit better at taming my constant need for social approval, but it has always been there.
I suppose you could say that this constant desire for approval stems from my own pursuit of perfectionism. Since I was a child, I have always wanted to be perceived as someone who had it together, who made wise decisions, who always looked put together, and someone who didn’t give people much of a reason to criticize her.
But as I have gotten older I have realized how exhausting that mindset can be.
For example, when I was younger, I remember having a falling out with a friend group. At the time, it was devastating, especially since it was happening during my freshman year of high school.
I distinctly remember sitting on the white marble countertops of my parents’ kitchen and crying to them because I was worried about what people were going to think about me. I was convinced that these so called friends were going to completely tarnish my reputation with everyone I knew.
They didn’t, but hey, bonus points for being dramatic.
My father, who has always been a keen admirer of life lessons, looked me in the eyes and said, “So what are you going to do? Live your life based on other people’s opinions? Never forget, you can’t control people’s tongues.”
After hearing that advice, I went quiet for a second.
The advice was so simple, yet so revolutionary. In a span of a second, it completely changed my mindset. Why did I care so much about what other people were thinking about me? At the end of the day, I know myself better than anyone else. If someone wants to talk about me, let them.
While high school now seems like it was ages ago, my father’s advice has followed me ever since.
When I was worried about what people would say about me because I didn’t get into my dream college, I went back to my father’s words. When I worried about what people would think about me when I started setting boundaries, I went back to my father’s words. When I would stress about whether a boy would call me back, I went back to my father’s words. When I would be hurt every time someone criticized my style, I went back to my father’s words.
Back then, I don’t think my father or I could have ever comprehended the depth of how much his words would resonate with me as I grew up and tried to figure out my place in this ever evolving, convoluted world; but they did.
It has been advice that I have consistently fallen back on time and time again. It is the advice I give to my friends when they are stressed about whatever is stressing them. But most importantly, it is the advice that I give to myself when I need to get out of my own head and remind myself that it really isn’t that deep at the end of the day.
But this phrase has also allowed me to step back and reassess my own identity.
One advantage I have as a second generation Pakistani American is that I have always been able to take the bits and pieces from both my Pakistani and American identities and mesh them into my own. It is a beauty of being a child of immigrants that I think tends to get overlooked.
I have never felt like I have chosen one over the other. With both of my cultures, I see the beauty, the flaws, and everything in between. Instead, I have chosen to take the parts of each culture that have resonated with me and allow them to shape the person that I am becoming.
For example, my mother has always told me that I have always been rebellious in my own way. Not necessarily in the traditional sense, but in the sense that I tend to do whatever I want to do.
I guess that is the inner Taurus in me.
If I have an idea in my head, I usually find a way to pursue it. If there is something I want to try, I try it. If there is something that I don’t want to try, I don’t go anywhere near it. If I don’t like you, I stop talking. And if I don’t agree with someone on something, chances are that I will tell you that I don’t agree with you to your face.
Call it what you want. Authentic. Stubborn. Or perhaps even both?
Growing up, I also became aware of the unspoken rules that can come with being Pakistani. Don’t talk too much about your accomplishments. Don’t draw too much attention to yourself. Be mindful of what you wear, what you say, and how you are perceived. There was always some awareness of nazar, the evil eye, and the idea that too much attention or admiration could bring something negative with it.
While I didn’t necessarily hear those phrases from my own parents per se, I heard them repeatedly from my extended family.
As I have gotten older, I have found myself questioning some of those ideas. Not necessarily because I want to reject where I come from, but because I want to decide for myself which parts of my culture I want to carry forward and which ones I want to leave behind.
I have learned that I can value my culture without allowing every cultural expectation to dictate how I live. I can respect my elders without believing that I have to agree with everything they say. I can love my family without making every decision based on what other people might think. And perhaps most importantly, I can acknowledge the existence of nazar without living my life afraid of being seen.
At the end of the day, you have one life. Live it the way you want to live it. Wear what you want to wear. Say what you want to say. Set the boundary. Take the risk. Do the thing that makes you happy, even if someone else doesn’t understand it.
Tune out the background noise. Stop worrying about every opinion. Remember that you cannot make everyone understand you.
As my father has always reminded me, you cannot control other people’s tongues.
But you can control whether you let them stop you from living.