Just Screw the World’s Opinions. You Are Who You Say You Are!—Or Not Quite?

What people need to keep in mind, is that what our society considers beautiful, “applaudable”, successful, or worthy of attention, is largely subjective. Most of us (including myself) seem to spend our lives comparing ourselves to others and seeing how we measure up to the societal ideal at the time. Are we closer to that ideal than others? The annoying thing is that these ideals seem to be things that are often unchangeable either because of genetics or just because the life cards we were dealt did not seem to have these “ideals” in mind. Are those people who just happen to fit the “subjective ideal societal bill” more worthy of praise because of what they were handed on a silver platter than those who were not handed the same package? I think not. Someone should be judged based off of their efforts towards progression, which can really only be determined by the person themselves, and the world takes all kinds, so we should just all stop judging. Even Christians. We Christians need to stop subjecting others to stupid, shallow “public image” messages and imposing them on the rest of humanity. It’s dumb, is the opposite of what we’re supposed to be standing for, and it needs to stop.

From birth, we are bombarded with images and opinions that we can either choose to listen to or not. But it’s hard just to throw in the gutter what our family members, friends, and the rest of the world tells us about ourselves. We (hopefully at least to some extent) want to please other people and feel that we have something of value within us that we can contribute. I believe this is a healthy desire. I think saying that we should just screw the world and not listen to healthy criticism is going to the opposite, unhealthy extreme, but is a bit of a current fad. It might be well-meant, but I don’t think it’s constructive. As Christians, we know who we are called to replicate—Jesus Christ. His life example should be our guide, and the Holy Spirit, our filter. Recently, I have been struggling with knowing what the limit should be between being who others say I should be, and being who I think I should be. But I realized, when it comes to knowing who I am, others see such a limited one-sided view of me, and likewise, so do I. Who would have a better idea of the individual I was meant to be than my Creator Himself? So it’s not about balancing everyone’s opinions, walking on your tiptoes around others in fear of rejection, or screwing the world. It’s about taking it all to God, and letting Him decide.