Very often we stop ourselves from doing something, or we change the way we do something for some strange “fear” of what others may think.
I’m eating something I don’t like so mum will say I’m a good girl.
I’m not singing in public so they won’t tell me I’m tonedeaf.
And so many other things, ’till unbelievable paroxisms.

Icon told me to read “Your erroneous zones” by Dyer, great great book. It demolishes one by one all those little voices we hear in our heads saying things like “No, don’t, what will others think?” “No, don’t, preserve yourself exactly this way, change is hard” “No, don’t! Don’t you see how easy this is? How people respond giving you what you think you want and this way we’re all miserables together?”.

I’m going to add further proof to Dyer’s awesome book (read it and realize how many people in this world should read it too… even though not everyone will get its message).

Once upon a time, well, not long time ago, there were a wealthy american lady who had a dream: becoming a famous singer.
And, to be honest, she did mange to become a famous singer!
Very famous.
Veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery famous.

But let’s not skip steps. Our heroine, given the time in wich she lived, had to face many obstacles to achieve her goal, but trying and trying our Florence (this was her name, and maybe some of you already know where I’m heading to 😉 starts to gain more and more soirées, more and more roles, more and more fame.

By this time you are wondering where and how other people’s opinion do NOT matter.
We have proof, unrefutable proof, with pictures of her and most of all a recording.

She was patently awful.

BUT!

And here comes the great lesson we have to learn from this great woman: she thought of herself as a great singer, she thought she didn’t need any operatic training, that what you heard in the theater weren’t laughs, but compliments and applauses, that the “booing” came from envious people (most notably her envious collegues).
So she kept singing, for years, earning fame, ok, Florence Jenkins is known as “the worst soprano ever”, but let’s walk in her shoes for a while, instead that in those of listeners and critics. Let’s think with our favourite (oh yes, she had plenty of fans and admirers) singer’s mind: better, with her own words “People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing”.

If you’re still thinking “yeah, well, but she sucked!” you’re not grasping the point here.
Which is precisely this: for how bad people thought, their thought had absolutely no power at all, no influence at all on Florence’s life, she lived happily, ignoring all those nasty comments.

And if she did it, why on earth can’t we do the same???