Each of us is a small fish in a big pond. Ok, that was trite. I'll try again. Each of us is a small pebble in a big sea of many pebbles. That's better, and I have a picture to illustrate...
So a person, I'll name him Peter, is a little pebble in this big sea. Peter goes to junior high school everyday. As a parent, this is a hard thing to do to a child. I HATED Jr High. The only word I can use for this period in my life is "sucks". I don't think I'm alone in this and a wise friend told me that the main goal is to get your kids through Jr High with some semblance of their self respect and no felonies.
Peter is convinced that everyone is always looking at him, staring at him actually, and plotting unique ways to facilitate his demise (probably by stuffing him in a trash can or by making him eat a school lunch). Using my parental powers granted to me by the State of Ohio, or at least by the hospital that insisted I take BOTH children home, I have imparted the following wisdom...
No one is thinking about you, because they are too busy thinking about themselves.
This truism, this fact, is POWERFUL- almost Dumbledore crystal ball powerful. Once you realize that everyone else's head is simply too clogged up with thoughts about their own mismatched socks, their cowlick or their inability to master Greek, you are set free. I mean that. Not free like flying in space or like my dreams of a great day at Macy's, but it is an amazing thing to walk into a room full of people and know that short of a brussel sprout embedded in your upper left bicuspid, you're fine. Not only are you fine but everyone else in that room is so worried about their own proverbial brussel sprout, that you are completely off the hook. Short of stuffing a lampshade on your melon and breaking a window with your best soprano warble, it's all good.
SO, where does that leave Peter? Nowhere really, he doesn't listen to me. Maybe some day.
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