You're sitting in the parking lot after the meeting, engine off. You pitched an idea, and your boss said, "Interesting." That's all. Now you're running it back. Was that a polite no? Did Dave smirk? By the time you pull into the driveway, you've decided to drop the idea. Nobody said a word against it.
If that's familiar, you've probably been told to just stop caring. It doesn't work. You can't order yourself out of a feeling. But you can change how much power it has, and an old teacher named Epictetus has a clear way to do it.
Why "just don't care" fails
Caring what others think is old equipment. For most of human history, a man the group thought badly of was not trusted, not helped, and not married. The alarm you feel at disapproval was once useful.
There's a second problem. The man who announces that he doesn't care what anyone thinks, loudly, is performing. He still needs an audience. He has only changed the show.
Epictetus never asked his students for indifference. He wanted them to be good sons, citizens and husbands, and to pay attention to the people around them. What he questioned was narrower: where you put your sense of being all right.
Your character is yours. Your reputation is theirs.
Epictetus was born a slave in the Roman Empire, was lame in one leg, and later taught philosophy in Nicopolis, in Greece. His students were sons of wealthy, well-connected families, men whose futures depended on being well thought of. One of them, Arrian, wrote down what he said.
His whole teaching starts from a division.
Of things some are in our power, and others are not. (Epictetus, Enchiridion 1)
In our power, he says, are our own judgments, choices and actions. Not in our power: the body, property, office and reputation.
Reputation is on the second list. Think about why. Your reputation isn't a fact about you. It's a collection of opinions held in other people's heads. You can't see into those heads, correct them, or make them fair. People will judge you on a glance, a rumor, or whether you remind them of someone they disliked.
Your character is different. Whether you keep your word, do the work properly, and treat people fairly is entirely yours. Nobody can hand it to you or take it away.
Here is what that looks like in the parking lot. Whether your boss liked the idea is not up to you. Whether you presented it honestly and prepared well is up to you. Most of us lose sleep over the first and barely audit the second.
Marcus Aurelius, centuries later and from the other end of Roman society, noticed the same oddity. As he put it in his private notebook, "I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others." (Meditations, Book 12) He was an emperor with every reason to want approval, and he still saw how strange the habit is.
Epictetus's point is not that you shouldn't want to be well thought of. Prefer it, if you like. Just don't need it. A need for something you don't control makes you another man's property.
Find out who "they" actually are
The anxious mind turns everyone into one faceless crowd. They'll laugh. They'll think I failed. That crowd feels huge and wise and unanimous.
Epictetus once met a man who was pleased that people were starting to admire him. He asked: "Who are they by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not those of whom you are used to say, that they are mad? Well then do you wish to be admired by madmen?"
It's a rude question. It's also a useful one. Try a modern version. Call it a roll call.
- Pick one thing you're afraid of being judged for.
- Write down, by name, the people whose opinion you're worried about. If you only have "the guys at work," put two or three real faces to the group.
- Ask three questions about each name.
- Does this person actually know me? My circumstances, my reasons, what I've weighed? Or are they judging from a distance, on a tenth of the facts?
- Do they know the subject? If I'm afraid of what my brother-in-law thinks about me changing careers, has he ever done it?
- Would I trade places with them? Do I admire how they live? If I wouldn't take their advice on how to live, it's odd to let their opinion run my life.
Most men find the list shorter than the dread suggested, and most names fall away. What's usually left is two or three people who know you, understand what you're attempting, and have earned your respect. Their opinion is worth seeking out, and it may sometimes tell you that you're wrong. Listen to it. Epictetus never said to ignore good counsel.
The goal is not "I care about nobody's opinion." It's "I care about the considered opinion of a few people, and I've stopped handing my mind to passers-by."
If it's right, do it where people can see
A lot of the judgment we fear never happens. Nobody says anything. We imagine the disapproval ahead of time and obey it.
Epictetus gave a test for this, and it comes in two steps.
Step one: Is this the right thing to do, by your own best judgment? Not "will it be approved of," but "is it right?" If it isn't, don't do it, and the question of opinion never comes up.
Step two: If it is right, do it openly. Don't sneak it. Don't apologize in advance. Don't wrap it in explanations. As Epictetus put it, "For if it is not right to do it, avoid doing the thing; but if it is right, why are you afraid of those who shall find fault wrongly?"
Most of our anxiety lives in the gap between those steps. We're fairly sure the thing is right, and we're still trying to arrange for nobody to mind.
He also warned that when you start living differently, people will tease you. If you hold steady, the teasing usually fades, and some of the people who laughed start to ask how you did it. If you fold at the first joke, you end up with the old life and their contempt.
This week: five steps
None of this takes long. All of it takes honesty.
- Count. For two days, make a small tally mark each time you change what you say or do because of how it will look. Don't fix anything yet. Just count.
- Run one roll call. One fear, real names, three questions each. Do it on paper.
- Sort one worry into two columns. Column one is what's yours (your effort, honesty, choices). Column two is what's theirs (approval, gossip, opinion). Put your attention on column one.
- Do one thing in the open. Pick something you've been hiding or putting off, run the two-step test, and if it's right, do it today without a speech.
- Ask the people who survived the roll call. Take one of them to lunch and ask what they honestly think. You may hear something you need.
A note: this is for the everyday pressure of other people's judgment. If your fear of being judged is strong enough that you avoid people, can't speak in groups, or dread leaving the house, that may be social anxiety, which is common and treatable. Please see a doctor or therapist. If you're being bullied or harassed, that isn't a job for philosophy alone, so tell someone who can act.
The sting of disapproval may never fully go away. Progress is when the sting stops making your decisions.
This is only the first part of what Epictetus has to say. Epictetus on Other People's Opinions in 40 Minutes goes further. It covers why praise is the same chain as blame, and a practice for doing good without reporting it. It also covers how to handle gossip, a family that disapproves, and an online stranger, and it ends with Epictetus's own portrait of a man who has gotten free of all this, sign by sign.
