A resolution

I don’t know why (since they’re usually worthless), but I decided to make a New Year’s Resolution, and this is what it is: I want to care less what random people think of me. Specifically, I want to stop tailoring my actions around how I imagine they will be perceived by people I don’t really care all that much about.

For instance, any time I think about posting something like “Glenn Beck is a douche” or “atheists can be moral” on Facebook, I get all jumpy and spend a while cowering in fear at the thought of some idiot from my past life thinking unflattering thoughts about me. Then I either back down and don’t post anything, or I post it and studiously avoid visiting Facebook for the rest of the day, to give myself a while to calm down before dealing with the reaction.

I know it’s good to care about your image, but...I think I need to care less. Obviously it matters what my family and closest friends think of me, but does it really matter so much? If they’re worth caring about, they can adjust to a world in which I exist as something different that what they would prefer. Most of the time I’m probably deluding myself in believing that they don’t already mostly know who I really am. In the cases when they don’t, and are actually in for a shock at what they discover (“You’re an atheist?! I’m so sorry to hear that!”), well...I just need to man up. Who will stand up for unbelief if not the unbelievers?

Does it matter at all how offended some bitchy-then, bitchier-now right-wing nutjob I knew in Italy can get about the damaging effect my lack of superstitious beliefs has on her right to deny reality? It has an effect on my wellbeing only insofar as I let it affect my mental state. It has no effect on the relationships that actually enrich my life.

It’s true that I don’t really understand social media and the desire many people have to broadcast their every though to the world. I’m just a more private person than that. But it’s also true that there are occasionally musings I feel like sharing but don’t, because of the fear of reactions I’ll never experience. So here’s my resolution: if Richard Dawkins says something edifying and burgeoning with truth, I will share it. I will do my best not to care that I have inconvenienced my former colleague by stressing his tenuous grasp on his precious facile worldview, and go about my day. I may still wait a while until I calm down before looking at any social media again, but hey, I can’t change who I am. Hopefully in the sharing I will become more comfortable not caring.