On Handling Critique

For a long time I believed that I could do whatever I would find right, and it didn't matter what others thought of it. What I can't say, is that it was always easy to do so. Many times I was getting that bothersome feeling that something wasn't right in what I've done or said. And since I strongly believed there was nothing wrong, that feeling has riddled me for ages.

After I was thinking about it today, it has suddenly dawned on me, that all these years I've been looking at things incorrectly, and in fact it was all the other way round. While I shouldn't have been bothered by doing things I believed in and people have found strange or wrong, before acting, I should have taken into consideration not only the logical rightness of that saying or activity, but also the way people would look at it, and its consequences. There are many things that the society considers to be wrong, with that being the only reason not to do them, which I consider to be stupid and incorrect inhibitions to follow. But, sometimes, it is better not to stick out when there is no underlying ideological reason, because many people won't understand, and the harm might be more significant than the gain.