Being disliked does not mean you are doing something wrong.

02-04-2026

©2026 BTMT-TJ

Being disliked does not mean you are doing something wrong.

There will always be people who dislike what you do. That truth is uncomfortable, yet it is also freeing once you stop fighting it.

Humans are social by design, often in the most inconvenient way. We are wired to notice one another, measure ourselves against one another, and adjust our behavior in order to stay included. Belonging has always been a form of safety. Long before likes, comments, or algorithms existed, approval meant survival. For hundreds of thousands of years, being accepted by the group kept us fed and protected. That wiring did not disappear just because society modernized.

Because of that, caring what others think is not a personal flaw. It is biological. Even the most independent thinkers still glance sideways, if only briefly, to see whether they are being accepted, admired, or at least tolerated. There is a quiet belief inside many of us that we need permission from others to take up space.

At the same time, humans are endlessly opinionated. Everyone views the world through a different lens shaped by culture, upbringing, values, aesthetics, and experience. What is praised in one space may be mocked in another. What feels honest to one person may feel offensive or misguided to someone else.

This is the tension we live inside. We are built to seek approval in a world that can never offer it unanimously.

No matter what you believe, someone will disagree. No matter what you enjoy, someone will find it embarrassing or distasteful. No matter how carefully you speak, someone will decide you are wrong. There is no version of your life that escapes judgment.

That is not a failure. It is a fact.

For a long time, I carried an audience in my head. A crowded room of imagined faces evaluating every thought before it had the chance to become action. Before I spoke, before I created, before I chose, the commentary would begin. Someone would judge. Someone would misunderstand. Someone would decide I was not enough.

Nothing needed to actually happen. I rehearsed their disapproval so thoroughly that it became real. Ideas were abandoned mid breath. Opinions were softened until they lost all meaning. Futures were dismissed before they had the chance to disappoint anyone. Over time, those unlived possibilities piled up quietly, turning my inner world into a place filled with what never happened.

Eventually, I realized the fear beneath it all. I believed there was a correct version of me somewhere. An objectively right way to exist. I thought that if I paid close enough attention to other people’s reactions, I might finally discover it. I treated my life like something that needed constant review before it could be approved.

That version does not exist.

No word escapes opinion. No action avoids interpretation. No human being is universally accepted. Chasing validation does not lead to freedom. It leads to self abandonment.

The irony is that judgment arrives anyway. People who would criticize you will do so regardless of how carefully you curate yourself. The only difference is whether you also lose yourself in the process.

Choosing to live honestly means accepting that some people will not like it. That discomfort is the cost of being real. It is also the proof that you are no longer shrinking yourself to fit into spaces that were never meant to hold you.

These days, I let the imagined audience speak quietly in the background while I move forward. I speak anyway. I try anyway. I create anyway. Disapproval no longer feels like a stop sign. It feels like confirmation that I am finally living a life that belongs to me.

Being disliked does not mean you are doing something wrong. Often, it means you stopped diluting yourself for the comfort of others. That is not failure. That is courage.

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