It's My Life (and I Love It)

I have a problem.

Well, it's not really a problem for me, but it seems to be a problem for other people. Try as I might, I have great difficulty caring about what other people think.

I can't say I don't care at all. I do care about some of the things they think. I enjoy being liked by people, but don't care if they don't. I love making people laugh, so I want them to think I am funny, but don't actually care if they think I'm juvenile. I appreciate being known as a good guy who can be trusted…but that seems to be where it stops.

About ten years ago, my brain made a subconscious philosophical U-turn and I've been much happier ever since. There were a number of factors that led to this change, but I should have made this decision much earlier in my life.

I just don't put much thought into what people think of me.

I mentioned earlier that I enjoy being liked. That's true, but I've learned how to let it go if I'm not. I am not a perfect person, but I try to be kind to everyone and if someone decides they don't like me, it's okay. I don't have to win them over. I have plenty of friends.

Plus, I get it. I don't like most people and it doesn't even take a good reason.

The main thing I don't care about is people's opinions of my decisions for my life. In the last decade, I have made many decisions that made people shake their heads in confusion or disapproval.

Decisions in the last 10 years that made people go HUH?:

• Bought a tattoo shop
• Married a girl I met online
• Had a six-day engagement
• Quit my job and moved to China
• Quit my job in China and moved to Vietnam

These are the bigger examples, but there have been plenty of small ones. Now and then, some of what is being said about my decisions or the "he-likes-to-fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants" nature gets back to me and I can honestly say that my response is a shrug.

Meh!

It really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. As long as I am not hurting another person, my life is my life. My favorite thing to tell people who ask me about something I have done is "You only get to live this life once. You might as well enjoy it."

The decisions that my wife and I have made for our lives is why I am writing this post on the rooftop terrace of my beachside apartment in Vietnam instead of in an apartment in Indiana.

I live here now because we decided to follow what we wanted instead of doing what everyone said was the smart thing to do.

This is literally a five-minute walk from my front door.

In my next post, I'll get into what led us to move here.