A friend once told me “I don’t judge other people; Why should I let them judge me?”. This was in response to me ranting about how I feel people react when espousing some of the things I believe in, or I do not believe in. Since then I’ve tried thinking this way. If I am judged to be something; I just let it be. If I care too much of how other people see me, I will cease to be the person I am, and I like the person I am. I may have a lot of faults, insecurities and sins, but as my friends make fun of me when I say it: “I am the nicest guy I know.” (Mulling this question seriously I am not the nicest guy I know but I am definitely in the top 5). Yes there is a referendum, but we must understand that people mostly are self involved. People are mostly judging themselves; and simply put deep down nobody like looking down on themselves. Life is not a game that can be won or lost. It simply is life. Read the whole article to understand what The Referendum phenomenon means.
The Referendum is a phenomenon typical of (but not limited to) midlife, whereby people, increasingly aware of the finiteness of their time in the world, the limitations placed on them by their choices so far, and the narrowing options remaining to them, start judging their peers’ differing choices with reactions ranging from envy to contempt. The Referendum can subtly poison formerly close and uncomplicated relationships, creating tensions between the married and the single, the childless and parents, careerists and the stay-at-home. It’s exacerbated by the far greater diversity of options available to us now than a few decades ago, when everyone had to follow the same drill. We’re all anxiously sizing up how everyone else’s decisions have worked out to reassure ourselves that our own are vindicated — that we are, in some sense, winning.
via The Referendum – Happy Days Blog – NYTimes.com.