A random person’s opinion of me doesn’t matter to me.  It should not matter to you either.

After all, they do not know us.  They do not know our family of origin and the battles it took to get this far.  They do not know how much we have learned from our mistakes.  Our experiences, success and failures, lessons, and insights are foreign to them.  They certainly do not know me well, and I doubt they know you. 

Yet, we live in a world that increasingly cares about what random people think about us.  We allow them to comment on our social media posts with ideas that have no context.  Their comments haunt our minds as their negative statements somehow seem more believable. 

They certainly want us to know their thoughts, and they cannot just scroll past and leave their ideas unsaid.  They talk to people and share stories built on half-truths to convince others that they should hold the same view of us.  Their words hurt, even when I don’t know them. 

I want you to know today, while I remind myself, that some people’s opinions of us do not count.  They should be ignored entirely and forgotten if they are accidentally heard or read.  Not everyone has the right to speak into our lives, and their opinions are a burden we do not need to carry with us.  Let it go, and let’s move forward with the people who love us and want the best for us.  Critics abound, so consider the opinions of only a sacred few.