Not Everyone is looking at you

I was in the hospital early this morning and while I waited for the doctor, I noticed this woman staring at me. It was a really hard and steady stare. A bit uncomfortable too.

I sat there wondering why she was so invested.

Why?

A couple of hours later, I saw a nurse walk down to attend to her, and engaged in conversation with the daughter who was sitting to her right.

I overheard them talking, and I laughed at myself.

The woman was hard of hearing, and visually impaired.

But, I wasn’t hallucinating. She was looking my way, but not at me. But she was in her own world and was not a bit interested in me.

I had pretty much overestimated myself.

I remember one research exercise done a couple of years ago. Students were given a really embarrassing shirt to wear into a room. They thought 50% of people in the room would notice this embarrassing shirt, but only 25% actually did. In another research, it was an inspiring shirt that was used, and only 10% of people noticed.

In mine–and these students' defense–we only have full access to our own thoughts and feelings, and can only guess the perspective of others. So we often end up in the error of prioritizing what’s in our head.

We often worry that others notice us when most of them aren’t. I received evidence to the contrary right there in the hospital–a trivial occurrence I would have forgotten regardless. But think of others who, in more consequential instances, build a mindset for themselves that holds them back.

One of the limitations holding a lot of us back from taking action is we often think others are looking at us, and we place so much energy hallucinating about other people's thoughts, and overestimating ourselves.

Not everyone is looking at you! There is no audience. The world is a concoction of a million concerns, each person is in their own heads, engaged with their narratives. Your action, which seems like headline news to you, is a whisper to most others.

Go do your thing! Don’t let the opinions and judgments of an imagined audience hold you back.

And for the very small percentage of people who are actually looking and talking, I’ll leave this thought I came across recently:

One day, generations from now, everyone will probably have forgotten about us. We will all be gone, including the people whose opinions stopped us from doing what we wanted. So, it’s worth doing what you want between now and then, because everyone is probably going to forget about us anyway.