Striving Towards Excellence

–Karthik Gurumurthy

“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”- Marcus Aurelius

This hits different when you really think about it.

We claim to know ourselves best. We prioritize our own comfort, our own desires, our own survival above almost everything else. And yet… we’ll twist ourselves into pretzels trying to please people we barely know or don’t even like.

How this shows up in real life

You’re getting dressed for an event. You wear the T-shirt you love—it feels like you. But then you pause and think, “What will they think?” So you change into something safer, something more “acceptable,” even though it doesn’t feel right.

You just traded your own opinion for a room full of people who probably won’t even notice what you’re wearing.

Or think about career choices. You know deep down what kind of work lights you up, what you’re naturally drawn to. But then you hear your parents’ voice in your head, or your friends’ expectations, or society’s definition of “success.”

So you take the job that looks good on paper, that you can explain at dinner parties, that makes other people nod approvingly—even though it drains you.

You chose their approval over your own fulfillment.

This contradiction is on steroids with social media.

You post something—a photo, a thought, an achievement. And then what? You check. And check again. How many likes? What did people say? Did that person see it?

Your own experience of the moment—whether it was meaningful, whether you enjoyed it—somehow becomes secondary to how it’s received by an audience of people scrolling on their phones while half-watching TV.

You literally hand your peace of mind over to strangers’ thumbs.

Here’s where it gets really crazy: we do this even with people whose judgment we don’t respect.

You might think someone’s shallow, or narrow-minded, or living a life you’d never want. And yet, if they criticize you or don’t approve of your choices? It stings. You feel it.

Why are we giving decision-making power to people whose decisions we wouldn’t follow?

You’re in a meeting. You have an idea—a good one. You know it’s solid because you’ve thought it through, done the research, understand the implications.

But you look around the table and hesitate. Will they think it’s stupid? Will someone shoot it down? Will you look foolish?

So you stay quiet. And then someone else says something similar ten minutes later and everyone loves it.

You had the answer but you trusted their potential judgment more than your own actual knowledge.

Or relationships. You know someone isn’t right for you. Your gut is screaming it. Every conversation feels like work. You’re not happy.

But what will people think if you break up? What will your family say? What if people think you couldn’t make it work? What if they judge you for being “too picky” or “giving up too easily”?

So you stay. Not because you want to, but because ending it would invite other people’s opinions—people who aren’t living your life, sleeping in your bed, or feeling your unhappiness.

Why do we do this?

Because somewhere along the way, we learned that other people’s validation feels like safety. Like belonging. Like proof that we’re okay.

We’re social creatures. We’re wired to care what the tribe thinks because historically, exile meant death.

But we’re not living in tribes anymore. We’re living in a world where we’ll never please everyone, where opinions are infinite and contradictory, where the person judging you today will forget about you tomorrow.

Here’s what helps me: remembering that most people are too busy worrying about what you think of them to spend much time actually judging you.

And the ones who do judge? They’re doing it from their own fears, their own insecurities, their own limited perspective.

Their opinion of you is really just a reflection of them.

What if you started treating your own opinion with the same weight you give to others’?

What if, before asking “What will they think?”, you asked “What do I think?”

What if you dressed for yourself, chose work that fulfilled you, shared what mattered to you, stayed or left relationships based on your own truth—not on managing other people’s reactions?

You’d probably lose some approval. But you’d gain something better: self-respect. Authenticity. The quiet confidence that comes from living aligned with your own values instead of performing for an audience.

The truth is this:

You love yourself more than other people—or at least, you should.

So why are you living like their scorecards matter more than your own experience?

They’re not living your life. You are.

Start caring about your own opinion the way you care about theirs.

That’s not selfish. That’s sanity.