ONE of the most recurrent phrases I heard my mother say when I was young was: “What will the neighbours think?”
She often compared me to the children in other people’s families with the assumption that they were better behaved than me. I knew that in most cases they were not. It was a disease in small towns and villages in Ireland – worrying about what other people thought of us and comparing ourselves to others.
In later life, my mother lived next door to a woman who had a serious alcohol problem. This woman’s husband had blocked all means of his wife getting alcohol so she came up with a pact with my mother. When the coast was clear, she would leave money in my mother’s garage and my mother would buy the drink for her.
I was working in an alcohol treatment centre when I heard about this arrangement and I was horrified that my mother was supplying this woman with alcohol as it went against all the advice I gave to people. I was also concerned about what the neighbours would think as there was only one supermarket in the town that sold alcohol. I said to my mother: “What will the neighbours think of you buying a bottle of vodka every other day? They will think that you are an alcoholic and the whole town will be talking about you.” Her reply surprised me. She said: “I don’t care about what the neighbours think, they can think what they like. I know the alcohol is not for me and I’m only trying to help that poor woman out.”
I was delighted that at that late stage in her life, my mother had stopped worrying about what other people thought of her.
While the world may have changed in many ways since that time, this disease of worrying about what other people think of us is still rampant. In my work, I come across it on a regular basis, especially with young people and the whole world of social media feeds into it. It is a major factor in anxiety. People are constantly comparing themselves to others and often they don’t feel good enough. They feel inadequate and are unhappy with their own bodies.
A wise man told me a long time ago: “When we are young, we worry about what other people think about us and then when we get older we discover that they were not thinking about us in the first place.”
I love the lines in the beautiful poem ‘Desiderata’ by Max Ehrmann: “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”
I believe that the only way to stop comparing ourselves to others is to value ourselves and accept ourselves as we are. People often quote the line of scripture “Love your neighbour as yourself” but they often empathise the love your neighbour bit, and forget about the need to love yourself. You can only love your neighbour to the extent that you love yourself and that is very different from being in love with yourself.
When I was a teenager, I hated myself and I had good reason. It was the 1970s, long hair was in the fashion, and I had frizzly hair that grew in six different directions and acne on top of that! I still remember the night 40 years ago when I made a decision to try to accept myself as I am. That was the start of a journey of self-acceptance. It is a journey that most people have to make and it starts with a decision to try to accept yourself as you are. It is a journey and one that we have to work on constantly but it starts with a decision.
I firmly believe that one of the key ingredients for good mental health is to value ourselves and be happy with who we are. When we do that, we will become less concerned about what other people think of us because what other people think about us is not our business.
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