I Care About What You Think

“I don’t care what you think” is a phrase that often pops into my head to counter an encounter someone who thinks I should not do something I want to do.

What others think is important to me. I, like you, am a social animal and so I have to care about what you think. So, a phrase like “I don’t care what you think” seems to have problems. Small as it may seem, it is a source of cognitive dissonance, at least for me, and thus is responsible for a misalignment of my energy.

My issue is not with the intent, but with the language and is important to find the language that works and allows stable internal alignments of focus, resolve, and energetic application. What you say to yourself is important and has an impact on your actions and expressions.

So, now for the problem: how can I care and care about what you think, while not allowing you or your intent to negatively impact the direction I take to reach my goals?

I do this by saying “I do not stop on disagreement. I move through disagreement.”

And yes, I included the “stop” in the saying on purpose.

This phrase does a couple of things.

The “stop” accounts for and allows a kind of subconscious review (I’ll be coming back to the notion of subconscious later…I’ll be moving away from using it as a descriptor of the mental realm). It is also paired with and ended with a move command, which further counters any possible negative effects.

Secondly, the phrase promotes comfort with the notion of disagreement. I don’t have to agree with anyone. Even more importantly, I don’t need to allow disagreement of any kind to move me away from any positive feelings I may be experiencing.

Thirdly, it emphasizes a moving on through the disagreement.

Fourthly, and most importantly, it makes no statements about how I should care for you. It makes agreement and disagreement irrelevant with respect to care. It makes review of the disagreement irrelevant with respect to care. I am now free to care, which leads to being free to love, without concern over agreement.

It interesting that “care” is not in the phrase. I think that it is not there because it is the underlying driver of creating the phrase in the first place. Caring is assumed and thus need not be there.

In the initial installations of the new phrase, it will be paired with the old one. Over time, the old phrase will disappear and be replaced by the new one. As time progresses, the new phrase itself will disappear from conscious application and move into non-conscious application where it will be implied and incorporated into the chosen actions automatically.

For some, this may seem like overkill. But for those that need precise transformations to get themselves to the next level, this is the kind of analysis needed to do just that.

All this to say, my journey continues and I care about what you think, whether you agree or not.