Who Is Your Everyone?

For this post I will be channeling my inner Oprah.

Michael Phelps is heeeeeeeeeeerrrrreeeeeee.

Sorry, just had to get in the spirit.

Last month I took a cross country road trip with my family which enabled me to get my O magazine on (otherwise this post would be like, "Did you see what came out of my son's diaper the other day?") In it I found this article and had my "aha moment."

The author Martha Beck (not actually Oprah herself so I guess I should stop throwing salt water taffies at the screen) explained that we are all programmed to care what other people think of us even when we try not to. Beck says, "We operate under the constant scrutiny of an imaginary audience. Sociologists call this audience our generalized other, or as I call it, our everybody committee. Your generalized other is actually based on the mental magnification of just a few people, often the most judgemental people you know."

Ask yourselves these questions:

Everybody wants me to_________________________________________

Everybody thinks I'm ___________________________________________

Everybody expects me to _______________________________________

Everyone's always telling me _____________________________________

Now think of the responses. Who in your life do you think gives you those responses?

Maybe all of you out there are like, "Everyone I know is my biggest fan and therefore everyone thinks I toot rainbows!!" Well good for you. You don't even need Oprah, you sound like you have things under control. You reach for those stars, girlfriend.

The rest of us might need some help. At least I did. As I answered those questions in my head I had some very negative responses.

Everyone wants me to....................................... sit on a pin

Everyone thinks I'm........................................... colossally irritating

Everyone expects me to..................................... be someone that I'm not

Everyone's always telling me............................... that I ruin lives and drink too much Diet Coke

I read on about how most people take one or two people that have expressed harsh judgement of them and project it on to "what everyone thinks of me." Aha.

I am INCREDIBLY blessed with some seriously wonderful, supportive friends and family that all really seem to love me. In fact I don't even have a few meanies on my committee. I only have one! How lucky is that? That in all my life I've only encountered one person that is kind of a judgmental cranky pants? Those are seriously good odds. But, as Oprah stared deeply into my soul and rightly pointed out, I am letting myself think that this one crank's opinion of me is everyone's opinion of me, and that is just not the case.

So what do we do if we find out that our committee is filled with cranky pants? We channel Donald Trump, fire the cranks, and hire some better people!

On my 25th birthday I made my husband give me 25 compliments. Compliments are sort of an inner struggle for him because he doesn't really enjoy putting his sarcasm on hold long enough to give them, so it was a special birthday treat. At the end of the night I remember saying to him, "Wow. I wish everyone thought as highly of me as you do." Now that is an obvious hire right there. In fact, I am appointing him the new president of my everyone committee. And he is totally going to rig all future elections, so I'm pretty much set.

Everyone wants me to....................... get cloned so that the world can be full of perfect people like me.

Everyone thinks I'm........................... prettier than Princess Kate.

Everyone expects me to..................... lay in my bed and eat cookies all day because I totally deserve it.

Everyone's always telling me............... that Candle in the Wind was really written about me.

What can I say, everyone just really loves me!

Now maybe there's another magazine out there for when reading O gave you a little too much self confidence and you've taken to walking around with a scepter.