This morning one of the pop-up ads that appeared thanks to my browser did what it was supposed to do – I read the ad. It was titled “How Not to Care When People Don’t Like You.” I learned long ago that not everyone would be interested in me or my writing. In fact, they might even be turned off by something I did or wrote about. Here’s a line from the article ““Remember that it is impossible to please everyone,” Chloe Brotheridge, a hypnotherapist and anxiety expert, tells us.” It’s a hard lesson to learn and happens to everyone in their teenage years. High school always has “in groups.” Remember the “jocks” or the “drama queens?” I’m sure you do, but they matter a day after you graduated? No!
The reason is you are no longer part of a larger group, high school age individuals. The smaller groups like the “jocks” were past history. Now your focus was on your job. There the smaller groups were often defined in negative terms. If you worked hard and were trying to always do a good job, you were described as a “brown noser.” Did you notice the shift in terminology? In high school, the terms were more often meant to be positive, at least as the group to find themselves; i.e., jocks meant you good at some form of sports. On your job, you were defined as a brown noser for trying to do a good job. Now in the world of work, you want to be defined as “a team player.” The people who described you are now your superiors. Unlike what happened in high school, people who thought they were better described you as a loser.
I think the phrase “How Not to Care When People Don’t Like You” is related to your immaturity. When we were younger, we tried hard to be liked by everyone. That’s not possible because of human nature. You might not like pizza. Immature people might consider not enjoying pizza as weird and a reason to exclude you. A more mature person would shrug and realize not everyone needs to like pizza. I think the phrase in this morning’s ad is an attempt to remind us of our high school days and get us to read the article and the accompanying ads. The ads were for jewelry, clothing, and links to other articles about dealing with “toxic people.” The ads were for things that might make us more popular or deal with toxic people. In other words, they’re trying to tap our immaturity to sell us something. Enough said!
