Author Julien Smith has a nice, long blog post that begins:

I have spent almost my whole life caring far too much about offending people, worrying if I’m cool enough for them, or asking myself if they are judging me.I can’t take it anymore. It’s stupid, and it’s not good for my well being.

Great, but I don't have time to read the whole thing, so here's my summary.

Let's start with the facts:

1. People are judging you right now. All the time, in fact.

2. You don't need everyone to like you.

3. It's your people that matter.

4. Those that don't give a fuck change the world. The rest do not.

5. You must break out of the prison you've created for yourself. "Everyone has an internetal eye. It always watching. It has been slowly constructed by society at large and by your friends and family, and it checks you for unacceptable behavior... The secret, the part that’s amazing, is that it can’t do anything to stop you, even if it wanted to. It’s an eye. It can only watch. The rest of you is free to act as you wish."

Once you accept those facts, you can get back your self-respect:

1. Do things that you consider embarrassing.

2. Accept, or deal with, awkwardness.

3. Refuse boundaries.

4. Tell the truth. "Telling the truth means seeing the truth, not adding your own layer of sugar coating or suspected emotion on top of it."

5. Explore the world. "Once you begin on this path, you start to discover that practically everyone is capable of understanding the weird things that you do. In fact, it makes you interesting and worth paying attention to, further feeding into your plans of world domination."

That's it. Any questions?

Not a single response to this. Whoa.