THE ILLUSION OF IMPORTANCE.
There is something called the illusion of competence.
It is the tendency to overestimate how good we are at something because we do not know enough to recognise how much we do not know.
Sometimes, I think there is a similar thing with importance.
The illusion of importance.
The belief that we are more significant in people's lives than we actually are.
That people are thinking about us as much as we think about ourselves, that our absence is being noticed, that our opinions are being carefully considered, that everyone is watching, analysing and remembering.
But most people are busy living inside their own heads. They are thinking about their own problems, their own insecurities, their own mistakes, their own futures. They are worrying about the things you probably never noticed about them, just as you are worrying about the things they probably never noticed about you.
You think everyone noticed that awkward thing you said, they probably forgot, sometimes, nobody even noticed you left.
And this is not meant to be depressing. In fact, I think there is a strange kind of freedom in it.
Because the illusion of importance can make you afraid to live.
You become too conscious of how you are perceived, but the truth is, most people are not watching you as closely as you think they are, and even the people who are watching will eventually move on to something else.
Dearest reader, this is not to say that you are unimportant, you are important to the people who love you, but you are not the centre of everyone's universe.
And perhaps accepting that is one of the most liberating things you can do. Most people will not remember the version of you that you are so desperately trying to protect anyway.
Sometimes, the person standing in your way is not the world. It is your own illusion of how much the world is thinking about you.
@favvy_Okwansđź–¤.
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