Nobody Cares About You

One day, years ago,

I was walking down the street

Listening to some music.

Having a great time,

In my own world,

Air drumming along to a song

And just being goofy.

Being me.

Then… someone walked passed

And looked at me,

With what I perceived to be

A hint of judgment in their eyes.

And… feeling embarrassed,

I stopped.

Embarrassed.

And walked home carrying a

Slight sense of shame.

Mmm.

That’s weird…

How much it bothered me.

They’re just some random person.

Someone I’d never seen before

And will, more than likely, never see again.

I don’t even remember what they look like.

But I remember the feeling.

Because it was so icky.

So the next day,

I spoke to my best friend about it.

What the heck was going on?

It had opened up a whole lotta’ questions

I was desperate to answer.

And you know what he said?

“You don’t have to do that anymore…

Yeah… just keep drumming”.

And that was it.

I realised

The shame I experienced

Wasn’t because I was caught doing something

Shameful.

But because I stopped.

Because I’d changed my behaviour.

Oh boy.

Then it dawned on me…

I’ve wasted years of my life

Worrying about the judgment of others.

To clarify something -

Why this example of me drumming?

Because

How you do you one thing is how you do everything.

This seemingly insignificant moment

Walking down the street drumming

And being put off by someone,

Is in direction relation

To how I was letting

That occur in other areas of my life

That I would actually deem important.

Think about it.

If you allow the fear of somebody else’s

Judgment

To dictate your behaviour

In a small area of you life,

You can bet your ass

You’re doing it when it matters most.

Auditions.

Difficult conversations.

Even regular conversations…

Meetings with directors

Etc etc.

And it only magnifies ten fold

When the pressure is on.

If I’m honest,

This challenge still pops up all the time.

But once you see

The amount of time and energy this

Costs you in your life and career,

You’ll never be able to “unsee” it.

Initially, I wasn’t even aware

I was changing my behaviour.

It was simply a cognitive mechanism

I’d unknowingly built to ensure people

Would like me.

And ironically, it doesn’t work.

You can’t force someone to like you.

And even worse, I was potentially pushing people away.

I would come to learn that in those moments

When I changed my behaviour

To please others, to be liked, to fit in,

My brain was trying to protect me.

It doesn’t want the tribe to reject me.

And that’s a beautiful thing.

But I was doing this all the time.

Everywhere.

So much so, it had seeped into my work.

I would alter my point of view,

To more closely align with who I was speaking to

If I deemed them to be “important”.

I wouldn’t speak up in rehearsals

For fear of sounding dumb.

Or I wouldn’t make that joke,

In case nobody laughed and I felt stupid.

Conversely, I might laugh at a joke

That I didn’t find funny

Just because I wanted someone to like me.

I wouldn’t make that “weird” choice in an audition

Because I thought the casting director might think

I was a “bad actor” and never see me again.

Worse than that,

I’d spent the vast majority of my career trying to

“Get it right”

To please other people.

Trying to do what I thought

The casting director wanted

Rather than trusting my gut,

And doing things my way.

The sad thing is,

I don’t think it’s that uncommon.

We are raised like that.

Praised for being ‘good’.

And reprimanded for being ‘bad’.

Then we grow into actors

Whose only desire is to be “good”.

Good at follow instructions.

Good at not going outside the lines.

Because we were praised for it.

Never

Speaking up. Speaking out.

Being silly. Being “naughty”.

Never giving ourselves permission

To just be us.

Realising this…

The awareness stifled me at first.

I felt like I’d been pulled out of the matrix

And I could finally see all the ways in which

I wasn’t being myself in my every day life.

But if I was to proceed as an actor,

And as a person,

If I was ever going to grow…

This couldn’t go on.

***

Why am I telling you this?

As crude as it sounds

Acting is an economy of personality.

You are your currency.

And it pays to be authentic.

Not only that,

If you want to be an actor,

Working at the highest level requires you

To surrender your fear of judgment

For the love of your authentic self.

One idea that might help you

Come to accept this is that:

Everyone is their own protagonist.

Everyone is the centre of their own story

Their own reality.

Seeing it through their lens.

Nobody is thinking about you.

Or what you are doing.

No one really cares.

How does that old saying go?

“Those that mind don’t matter,

And those that matter don’t mind”.

What a cliche.

But… it’s true.

The fact is,

At the end of the day…

We’re all going to end up dead.

Yep.

You think that random person looking at you

Down the street is going to remember you?

Or on your deathbed, you’re going to remember them?

According to Australian ex-palliative care nurse

Turned author, Bronnie Ware

The number one regret people had at the end of their life was:

They wished they had the courage

To live a life true to themselves.

In other words,

To live authentically.

Powerful shit.

Knowing this, I ask;

Do you care about what people think of you?

Do you worry about strangers

Judging you?

Do you fear being rejected

Because someone may not like you?

If you answered “yes” to any of these,

I say to you:

Well of course you care!

It’s in our DNA to care.

We’re primates who rely

On living and working in groups.

Ostracisation from the group means death.

So a level of care is only natural.

But now I will ask;

Do you let that fear influence you

And your decision making

In your work and every day life?

Do you allow the fear of judgement

To hold you back?

Do you change your behaviour?

Do you make yourself smaller?

Can you feel yourself behaving

In an inauthentic manner?

If the answer is yes,

Take a moment, grab a piece of paper and

Ask yourself these questions:

When I change my behaviour,

What am I protecting myself from feeling?

What am I afraid of?

And;

“What kind of person would I be

If I behaved the way I wanted to all the time,

Without this fear?

Write it down.

Open?

Playful?

Silly?

Joyful?

Free?

A kid again?

Like the world’s at your feet?

There are no right answers.

Just how you want to feel.

Next step: practice living like this.

How?

Start small.

Let your body lead.

Follow your impulses.

And work your way up.

Remember:

How you do one thing is how you do everything.

So.

Make the joke.

Speak up first.

Do the goofy dance.

Make the bold choice.

Just do it.

Because the reality is…

No one cares about you.

When you realise this

And get comfortable making choices in life

That are in line with your values,

What actually matters to you,

It won’t come as a shock to your body

When you start making those same

Authentic choices in front of the camera lens,

Or in the rehearsal room or on stage,

Or in a difficult conversation

With a spouse or loved one.

If you stray off course,

Great!

Listen to your body,

Notice you’re changing your behaviour,

Celebrate that win,

Then make a new choice in line with your values.

Because at the end of the day,

Nobody cares.

Not really anyway.

When you think of it like this

It can be a most liberating concept.

Have fun out there.

D x