The two people and a donkey story illustrates one of 7 ways of how to stop worrying about what other people think.
Adam Rifkin stashed this in Worrying is like a rocking chair.
Stashed in: #lifehacks, Advice, #kindness, Be yourself., @ifindkarma, Quora!, Awesome, Manifestos, Kaizen, Life Hacks, Give and Take, Rituals, Lessons are repeated until they are learned., @brenebrown, Self Compassion, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Anxiety
6. Don't try to please everyone.
Multiple Quora users told the same story, about two people and a donkey, which points to the foolishness of trying to please everyone.
At first, two people are riding a donkey, and passersby call them cruel. Then, one person rides the donkey while the other walks, and passersby call the rider selfish. They switch positions and now the new rider is called selfish.
Finally, both people walk alongside the donkey and passersby laugh at them for not knowing how to ride a donkey.
The moral of the story, says Syeda Ratal Zehra, is that "people will always judge you no matter what."
2. Tell yourself a different story.
No one can make you think or feel a certain way — it's all about the way you interpret their behavior. So by changing that interpretation, you might be able to make yourself think and feel more positively.
Karen Renee gives an example. Maybe you habitually tell yourself: "Today I [action] and everyone laughed. They must think I'm stupid. I'm stupid. Everyone knows I'm stupid. I can't face them again!"
Instead, Renee says you might tell yourself: "Today I [action] and everyone laughed. I think I cheered up a couple people who were having a bad day, even if it was by accident …"
Renee cites Brene Brown's research on getting over shame, and worrying what other people think of you. Brown recently told Tech Insider that her No. 1 "life hack” for lasting relationships is to recognize that your perception of your partner's behavior is "the story I'm making up."
"Basically," she said, "you're telling the other person your reading of the situation — and simultaneously admitting that you know it can't be 100% accurate."
1. Remember that people aren't that interested in you.
Several Quora users mentioned that people generally don't care about you as much as you think they do.
Sibell Loitz, for example, prompts readers to consider how much time they spend thinking about others and their behavior: "not that much time."
Psychologists call the tendency to overestimate how much other people pay attention to you the "spotlight effect." In a 2000 study, highlighted on Tech Insider, people were asked to attend a party wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Barry Manilow on it (it was supposed to be embarrassing).
Sure enough, those people significantly overestimated how much the other people at the party noticed their t-shirt.
8:43 AM Jul 06 2016