Opinions: the thing you say you don’t care about, and yet you still do.
If you go on the web and do a little research on ‘not caring about other people’s opinions’ you will find a ton of websites, and pretty sure, you’re going to be overwhelmed, what with an article with a whole inquiry into the depths of the brain that even the title makes you fall asleep, to an article that you could’ve just gone to your friend to get the same advice. I will confess right here right now that that was exactly me when I went to do some research.  But out of the all the sites that I went through (and out of all the times that I managed to stay awake), I found one that caught my eye and I liked. Here it is. In this article, I’m going to cram all the key points from http://waitbutwhy.com/  into a smaller version so you can wrap your head around this whole ‘social mammoth’ thing. (Please be aware that this website has some strong language in it. In this article, I’m making a kid-friendly version. All ideas, photos etc. come from Waitbutwhy.)Â
So by now you must be wondering: “Social Mammoth? She’s insane.” Let me explain. Do you know your Great 2000th Grandfather that lived in a tribe during the year 50 000 BC? Well, our problem resorts back to that date. During 50 000 BC, it was a dire need to be in a tribe, you would get food and protection when both were the only things that life was based upon. So, your Great 2000th Grandfather had to try to ‘fit into’ the tribe as best as he could, the smallest mistake would cost him his life. The weirder he was, the less was his chance for survival. If the majority of the tribe agreed that he was too weird, out he goes. Because of this, we grew an obsession of what other people thought of us.  For our uses, we’re going to call this obsession the Social Survival Mammoth:
(pretty cool, am I right?)Â
Back when your Great 2000th Grandfather was alive, the Social Mammoth played a big role in his life. It would tell him what to do and what not to do, who to talk to and who to not, basically: he was guided through his life by his mammoth. This was fine for tens of thousands of years, life was more simple back then and the Social Mammoth fitted in perfectly. But with the evolution of the human mind , we soon changed, a lot and fast. Now we were studying philosophy, mathematics, poetics, and we were starting to build a new civilization and culture. But the problem here is that with such a rapid change in our minds, our bodies couldn’t catch up, natural evolution is a slow process, Our bodies are still cabled for life in the BCs. So, we are now in the year 2016, and we still have a sweaty, furry mammoth beside us that thinks it’s still the year 50 000 BC. For example:
Look familiar? Well, it’s the Social Mammoth that always makes you feel weird when you’re alone in a mall and everyone is staring at you, or when you’re standing alone on the first day of school because all of your friends are in a different class and you feel like you could just burst into tears at any moment.
Keeping your Mammoth well taken care of takes a lot of work. Not only do they need to feel safe at all times, but they need to be fed regularly on praise and approval. Our society has created many things to help keep this Mammoth safe: stereotypes, cliques, hair styles, fashion statements. For example:
Sometimes some people feed their mammoth using your accomplishments. Like so:Â
We also have someone called a Puppet Master. These Puppet Masters can be anyone in your life: a parent, teacher, friend etc. Our mammoths concentrate on pleasing these Puppet Masters as well as they can, they practically inhale the Puppet Master’s words. Like so:
BUT, we have a solution: your Authentic Voice. Often as not, the Social Mammoth takes up so much of our time that we forget the voice in our head that stands for our morals and beliefs.
The Authentic Voice:
After a while, the A.V (Authentic Voice) begins to shrink and slowly walks over to cry in a corner. Like so:
Losing touch with your A.V is a horrible thing because you become dependent on other people’s opinions, this makes you very fragile. The Social Mammoth has taken over in a world where it shouldn’t because, let’s face it, the Mammoth wants to be perfect in everyone’s eyes and we know that’s not possible. So just as much as the praise of your teachers, classmates etc. makes you feel amazing, you’re going to feel AS bad when you get criticized by them. The people who are run by their Mammoth, cannot take any criticism at ALL, they make a comeback. For example:
This whole ‘Mammoth Situation’ is getting out of hand.Â
To Be Continued….
