You know what I hate? Being embarrassed.

I don’t think it’s something that really anyone enjoys. My girlfriend is deathly afraid of embarrassing herself. I spent years making a fool out of myself and laughing it off while my face turned red and my eyes welled up. Man, did I hate being embarrassed.

So what’s the solution? You stop trying new things, right? You pull back and get quieter and quieter. I spent the first few years of high school always looking over my shoulder to see if someone was laughing at me – especially girls!

I think being embarrassed is a universal thing. Everybody’s done something stupid at one time or another. The problem is that people can get so scared of embarrassment that they hold themselves back from being really, truly happy.

One of my favorite shows of all time is Boy Meets World. In the second season, Cory and Shawn enter middle school, and they are suddenly surrounded by all these people “cooler” than them. Cory comes across as the most genuine nerd in the world: the guy that will do anything to be loved by everyone and seen as “cool”. So he spends the whole season selling his best friend down the river, betraying his future wife left and right, and sucking up to the “coolest guy in school”. Yet he forgets that his best friend has always stood by him, that girl really cares about him, and the “coolest guy in school” is actually one big giant loser. Every other episode, he has to re-learn that his friends are the ones he should stand by, and he’s lucky to have them.

Okay, so what does an old television show have to teach us adults about life?

Look around you. Are you doing things so that people won’t look at you funny? Do you hold back on your beliefs because everyone else doesn’t see it the same way as you? This peer pressure stuff doesn’t stop in school. It happens at work, and even in your family. I’ve seen people bend over backwards to do illogical things just to keep their parents from being displeased with them, even if it makes them miserable – and they’re adults!

Or how about online? Your reputation on the Web has gotten increasingly more important in recent years (especially mine!). Do you work hard to hide the little things about yourself that people might not like? Or do you pretend you are “into” whatever to look cool to other people? Heck, you see it in politics all the time: loudly and obnoxiously complaining about our previous President was the easiest way to get people to like you, even if it meant exaggerating the truth or your own opinions.

As I watched a video from Tim Ferriss, he said something very interesting: people won’t stop complaining, so stop trying to live up to their expectations. It was a brilliant piece of advice. Think about it: we live in a culture of whining. If we don’t like something, we talk about how we don’t like it until someone else does something about it. Heck, that’s how the Internet was built! (Just kidding, all you Web-lovers from way back!) Why do we force ourselves to live up to what other people think we should live up to throughout our entire lives? I don’t have an answer for you. We all want to be liked and feel like we are a part of something. Maybe that’s the reason. In any case, we need to start breaking ourselves of this habit:

1. Starting today, be happy with yourself.

You’re not a giant loser. You aren’t insane or weird. You’re you. Plain and simple. You are who you are, and nothing can change that. Accept it. Still an outspoken fan of professional wrestling? Go for it. Voted for McCain? Me too. Still enjoy watching cartoons as an adult? Who doesn’t? Be happy and secure in who you are, and ignore the snickers.

2. Have pity on those who laugh at you.

There is a large contingent of people on this earth that seriously have nothing better to do than pay attention to other people’s lives and make fun of them for it (Perez Hilton, anyone?). How sad and pathetic is that? They don’t have time to live their own lives because they are too busy criticizing other people. That makes me feel sorry for them – that doesn’t make me want them to like me.

3. Set your own expectations and manage your own goals in life.

Think about what makes you happy and what you have to do to get there. You want to be rich? Tell yourself that every day and take the steps needed to get there. Work hard and build up your finances. Dare yourself to dream a little bit. Don’t hold back on your life just because you are worried someone will laugh at you. Find your place as a productive member of society and of the earth, and get yourself there. Fly in the face of people who tell you it can’t be done.

This isn’t an excuse to be lazy. If you are 30 and you live in your parents’ basement while you play XBox 360 all day and flame message boards, you need to get out and be productive with your life. End of story.

4. Recognize that the complaints will continue.

No matter what you do, there will be someone, somewhere, who will complain about it. It won’t stop, no matter what you do. You can’t make everyone happy, so stop trying. A rudimentary example of this is a post I did on my old Vintage90s.com web site about the New Kids On The Block. Half the comments on the site were from avid fans who thought the post was great, and the other half was from a bunch of people who told me I was an awful writer, I needed a “new job”, and that I was basically a rotten human being. The world is full of these people. It’s time to start ignoring them.

Do you have any tips for people trying to live up to other people’s expectations, or a story of when you realized you were doing it? Share them in the comments for the rest of us!

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