I read an article online the other day about being misunderstood. It had a very huge impact on me and changed how I view a number of things that are significant to me.

The article was long and went into many facets of the issue and so it is hard for me to put it into a nutshell. What also makes that hard is that it was a fairly emotional response I made to the insights it provided.

But basically it was this:  There is a certain kind of confidence one gains by allowing others to misunderstand you without feeling the need to explain or correct. I would also add that it is also very liberating to let go of the need to try to bring others to a better understanding of you.

People are going to think whatever it is they are going to think. I might “feel” that I can influence that in some way, but I believe that is just my ego talking to me. As in “If I just put this clearly enough they’ll understand exactly what I meant. And I should be able to do that.”

Trying to bring another person to understand what you really meant, why you did what you did, or why you feel the way you do, is often basically a fruitless venture. People have usually already made up their minds about you. And some minds are very hard to change.

Yeah, okay, it might work in some instances. You know, when you are talking about something concrete that doesn’t rely on a lot of subjective impressions. But you can’t know know in advance when it will or it won’t. So it will create more peace within yourself if you just let them think whatever it is they are going to think. Have confidence in yourself that you know what you meant and that it was good and it doesn’t matter if others misapprehend you.

There are always going to be people in my life whose opinion of me matters to me. Not all of those opinions are going to be what I might consider to be good. If I can let that be, I think I will find more contentment in life.

Images courtesy of Ute’s International Lounge and theutopiauniverse, respectively.