Megan McInerney
What if they didn’t actually think that about you?
What if that hunch—the one you would have bet your life on—wasn’t correct after all?
What if you just saw it wrong? What if they actually liked you? What if they weren’t even talking about you?
Ah. It makes you a little mad, doesn’t it?
We are constantly projecting while trying to have a conversation with someone who is shooting their own projections back at us, all while society screams its giant expectations down on top of both. How are we supposed to discern the truth? Where do we look? What do we believe?
For an overthinker, this is pure, unadulterated hell.
Consider how we project. In The Self: you might feel deeply insecure about your own intelligence. Because that feels too painful to admit, you judge others as “gullible” or “clueless” to protect your own ego.
Think of it like this: every person you meet is a blank TV screen. When you feel anxious but refuse to admit you aren’t perfect, you shove that feeling down—just like you might have suppressed a heavy emotion last week—and project that hidden anxiety onto the person in front of you.
Magic! Suddenly, they are the ones with the issues.
In Relationships: if you are secretly losing interest in your partner but can’t own that scary truth, you might become intensely paranoid and constantly accuse them of wanting to leave.
In Psychology, this is a classic defense mechanism: a person represses an unacceptable urge and becomes hyper-fixated on punishing others they believe possess that exact same desire.
Even in Politics: a group or leader actively engaged in corruption might launch a campaign accusing their opponents of those very same actions.
It goes on and on.
With all this noise, how can we understand what is real anymore? The best thing we can do is shatter the glass. We have to let go of opinions, ideals, and false perceptions. Is any of it actually helping us? Isn’t it a cleaner break to drop the weight of it all as quickly as possible?
We must reflect and take responsibility for how we show up in the world, certainly.
But listening to every piece of static and carrying every single person’s opinion will drive us all mad.
Gravity is still unexplained by science; perhaps the reasons why people do what they do can remain a mystery, too.
Let the opinions fall away. Let the static go quiet.
Take one more deep breath, and let yourself get lighter.
The world is waiting for you, free of the screens.
Image: @calviomages
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