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I used to care about a lot of things. More than I want to admit.

Opinions of strangers, judgments from people I barely knew, the little social niceties that slowly felt like chains. I thought being mature meant carrying all that weight gracefully.

But the truth is, it just weighed me down. Over the years—slowly, quietly—I have stopped caring about some of the things I used to think defined me. Not loudly, not for applause, just in the quiet, in the back of my mind.

And it feels like I am finally breathing.

The first, and maybe the biggest, is worrying about what someone else will think. As you grow up, hit your teenage years, move through young adulthood, middle age, and your older years, part of the journey is getting to a point where you genuinely don’t care what anyone thinks, right?

But honestly, most of us never fully get there. I certainly didn’t. I used to think I had; I used to say it publicly, even. But deep down, there was always someone—some random person out there—whose opinion somehow snuck in and mattered.

I went through phases. One phase was admitting to myself, “Yeah, that matters.” Then I went through a phase where I publicly announced, “Nothing matters to me.” And now…well, now I’m at a place where I genuinely, 100 percent do not give a flying f*ck what anyone thinks of me.

And a lot of that, honestly, came from the loss of the two people who loved me more than anything. My parents. When they passed away within six days of each other in 2020, it broke me in ways I didn’t even know I had inside.

It took years to come back from that, not because I was trying to be brave or stoic, but because I had to sit with the grief. And sitting with it, really sitting with it, stripped away all the other bullsh*t. All the pretending, all the worry about what people would say, all the little adjustments I made in my life just to reflect well on them, to make them proud, to meet their expectations.

When they were gone, that disappeared. I didn’t have to pretend anymore. And that’s when I truly started living for me.

Another thing I’ve stopped caring about is worrying about how most people don’t give a f*ck what I think of them. Fair’s fair, right? It works both ways. If I don’t care what people think of me, I can understand when they don’t care what I think of them. Deep down, we all think we’re so important, so central, so worthy of attention, when the truth is: people are just living their lives.

I had no clue just how much of that external validation I was holding on to. And letting go of that? It’s liberating. Nothing and no one bothers me. If people take me and my opinions seriously, I love it. If they don’t, I move on. I don’t take anything personally anymore—not even from people I’m close to.

As a true blue Scorpio, I used to brood, get depressed, think endlessly about stuff, stew in my head for days. But not anymore. I’m genuinely, completely okay.

And then there’s one thing I’m pretty militant about now: freedom of speech. I want to be able to say whatever I want, without holding back, without worrying about repercussions for taking even the rightest of right stands in today’s world. And because of that, I am okay with everyone else saying whatever they want to as well.

Racist, ageist, sexist, judgmental, whatever. Call me names, criticize my appearance, my choices, and I am like, “Bro? Just bring it!” I honestly do not care. I just want everyone to have that freedom because it means I can do the same. What bothers me is real, concrete stuff like the stupid mistakes I make in my work, when I did not do enough research on something before I spouted some garbage on social media and got metaphorically whooped and owned. Things I should’ve done better. That still hits me. But petty insults? Personal attacks? Zzzz…

These days, I do things for me. Dress up because I feel like it. Look good because it makes me feel good—not for anyone else. And that, I think, is the bottom line of this whole thing: I’ve stopped caring about all the noise. The judgments, the expectations, the superficial opinions. I only care about what matters to me.

And that’s true freedom.

The more I let go, the more freeing life is.

I care less about judgment and more about my own compass.

I care less about how others live and more about how I feel.

I care less about the noise of the world and more about what truly matters.

The paradox is that when you stop caring about the things you thought mattered, you start living in a way that finally feels real. Quietly, without fanfare, and without announcing to anyone, “I don’t care anymore.”

And in that stopping, I have started thriving.

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