50 Shades of Shade: Why Taking Interpersonal Interactions To Heart (Good AND Bad) Is Never Useful

I’ve never read 50 Shades of Grey. You can probably tell that from the title. I just thought it was catchy. Feel free to judge me for it: I can honestly say that whilst I respect your right to have an opinion on the various things I do… It means absolutely nothing to me.

It makes sense to not take negative things to heart, but why is taking positive things to heart equally dangerous?

If you are allowing outside input of ‘opinion’ to form who you are, even if at first you are allowing only the positive things to form who you are, little by little, you will start listening to the ‘slightly positive’ things. Then, to the ‘neither good nor bad’. Then to the ‘constructively criticising opinions’, and then finally to the ‘negative opinions’.

You will be pulled pillar to post by both the good and the bad: you will end up relying on the ‘good’ to lift you up, to feel motivated, to feel energised, to feel meaning. If your sense of self relies on others, it will only be a matter of time until the rug is swept under your feet, and you have no esteem left to drag you out of bed in the morning.

It took me a long time to get here: once upon a time I was a ‘sensitive’ person, and then I realised that everything about me…