Should You Care What Other People Think? Self Esteem vs. Self Centered.
You might be surprised at the answer. The ways concern for “what other people think” influences our lives is not simple. Knee-jerk responses are not answers.
Sometimes ‘caring what other people think’ is about more than a contest of wills.
I came across a good example to demonstrate this idea in—believe it or not—a Jennifer Anniston comedy. The example is played out in the mis-connections of a couple featured in Friends with Money —which could have been titled Couples with Problems.
I have often heard the words used by this couple in marriage counseling when two people are lost trying to figure out what the other is saying with regard to the ‘caring what people think’ dilemma. (This is not a movie recommendation. In some parts of Mexico, English television is sketchy. The Simpsons in Spanish is on 24 hours in case I need a cultural reality fix.)
The couple, John and Jane, are co-writing a script. (Don’t we ever learn?) Both J’s are competitive and combative. Every discussion from who last took out the trash to who should be president ends in an ugly face-off followed by distance. The movie– which consists mostly of Jennifer Anniston wearing very little clothing—does a neat job of using J & J to demonstrate that how each partner views taking other opinions into consideration can define a basic conflict. 
If you’re expecting the psychologist ‘do what you want, dummy’ . . . You can keep your quarter.
Somewhere in their constant battles one J comes up with the idea of building a second story on their California coast home. For once the partner agrees. With something new to focus on, the couple calms down.
Construction ensues.
Somewhere in the exciting process Jane notices that her long-time neighbors are snubbing her. Bewildered Jane takes a plate of cookies to her longtime friend and next door neighbor and asks why she’s been getting the cold shoulder. Her friend leads Jane upstairs and asks her to look out the windows of the master bedroom and living room. Her precious view of the Pacific has been replaced by J & J’s new construction.
Jane is stunned. She storms back to her front yard. She insists that the workers halt construction immediately commence dismantling what they’ve done so far. The husband drives up and demands to know what’s going on. When Jane explains why the work must stop, John accuses her of always being ‘this way’ and that her tears and pleas are evidence of her low self-esteem. According to John, Jane has a serious emotional problem which has gelled into an all-out mental illness or at the least has blossomed into an unacceptable weakness.
John’s view is that Jane is ‘giving in’ (not getting what she exactly what she wants all the time) because she cannot tolerate a little disapproval. Because she’s always cared too much what other people thought. Take the place where their wedding was held. Hadn’t Jane given into caring what her mother thought? 
Jane tries to explain that fear of the neighbor’s disapproval is not behind her decision.
Her choice to not add a second story has nothing to do with the neighbor’s opinion, Jane says. She tries to explain that her choice is based on the fact that the neighbor is her trusted friend and she doesn’t want to take away her lovely view. It’s not so much that she cares what her friend thinks, it’s about the fact that she cares for her friend. She says, “I don’t care if she likes me or not, I care that her view is gone!”
John throws out the usual defenses used when one person wants to justify doing whatever they want to do without considering effects on other people. John points out that constructing the second story is within their rights.
Jane says, for her, it wasn’t okay to take away someone else’s view just because they could.
He shouts: (paraphrase—I’m not watching it again just to get the quote right) “Someone in this neighborhood has to be first! The rest of you are afraid to try anything new. And you—no wonder you can’t write with much excitement.”
And then, John lowers the closer: “You care more about what the neighbors want than what I want.”
Of course, what Jane hears is what she’s known all along. John cares more about what he wants than what she wants.
They split. 
It’s true that fear of ‘what other people think’ could decide your life for you, but it’s also true that ‘caring what other people think’ can define you in another, positive way. A way that involves being thoughtful. A way that considers decisions on a case by case basis rather than by invisible ‘right ways to be a strong person’ that are little more than thinly-disguised, emotionally based, demands to calm personal anxiety by having our way.
