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CTL-VII-0040

“Strangers online are tearing me apart and I can't stop reading it.”

CTL · Pillar III — Control CTL-VII · Own Only What Is Yours.

The pile-on feels like a verdict on your worth, and you keep refreshing the wound. But the opinions of people who don't know you are not yours to manage or carry. What is yours is your conduct and your character. Their words are an affair you keep volunteering for. You can stop attending.

Your Practice

  1. Close the thread. The reading is a choice you keep making - make a different one.
  2. Name what is actually yours: did you act rightly? That's the only verdict that counts.
  3. Mute, block, or step away. Protect the input you let into your mind.
  4. When the urge to check returns, redirect to one person whose opinion you've earned.

The Architects

“Whatever any man shall say about you, do not attend to it: for this is no affair of yours.”

— Epictetus, Enchiridion, ch. LI (George Long translation)

More under CTL-VII

CTL-VII-0001“I'm obsessing over something I can't control.”CTL-VII-0002“My anxiety is through the roof and I can't shut my brain off.”CTL-VII-0003“I stopped worrying about what people think and I feel lighter.”CTL-VII-0004“I let go of something I couldn't control and found peace.”CTL-VII-0005“I finally accepted that not everything is my responsibility.”CTL-VII-0006“Someone I trusted let me down badly.”
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