Now this doesn't mean you have to go crazy trying to satisfy everyone because you can't. People want contradictory things from you. You need to have your own moral or other principles to keep on track of a certain path in the face of rejection. But if everyone thinks you're an asshole, the answer isn't to just ignore everyone.

I think a better lesson is that it's better to have some haters and some who really like you than to have everyone be lukewarm about you and ignore you. The haters are no big issue unless they are really determined enemies, and the upside of the truly appreciative people is bigger. You can only get true deep connections if you accept the risk that some people won't like you. As long as you try to please everyone you won't really please anyone. See the story of the miller and his son.

Rather, I find it is that adults rule the conformance games that adolescents and teenagers play are “silly” all the while partaking in their own, which are of course not silly, but rather how one should conform and teenagers are wrong for not conforming to those ideals.

Consider that the parent who berates his child for smoking marihuana to be part of his clique will the next day consume alcohol at his office party, as to not be left out.

I assure you that 40 years old do care about what people think. Partly, because people are simply wired that way, that is why we are social animals instead of solitary ones.

But the other is that it matters. What people think about you influences how they treat you, what they tell you and what chances they give you. It makes difference between being listened to and being ignored.

Sure, I don't worry about what people consciously think of me, like "Does he think I'm incompetent because of that mistake I made? Does she like the way I'm dressed?". I'm more concerned with what they're not thinking, or rather the biases they may be unconsciously harboring about myself or others. Look at this [1], from a study on the relation of criminal sentences and attractiveness:

>Physical Attractiveness had a significant influence on judges sentencing. The more unattractive the criminal, the higher the sentence. Or conversely, the more attractive the criminal, the lower the sentence. The results of three studies show a minimum increase of 119.25% and a maximum increase of 304.88%.

That's pretty disturbing to me. It what other ways am I being treated and being shaped by the unconscious biases of others? Say Jim gets promoted into management and made leader of a project instead of me, because he's a "better fit" for the role. For what reasons is he a "better fit"? Imagine if the unconscious mind could speak. It might say something like this:

"Jim was made tribe leader because of his robust musculature. His square jaw arouses me to no end - such an indicator of higher testosterone, strength, and disease resistance will serve our offspring well. Broad-shouldered Jim can probably throw a spear hard enough to pierce fifty men. A warrior of his magnitude will surely lead us to victory against our ancestral foe, the Google tribe."

Okay, that's fine, but what does that have to do with shipping a profitable software product?

"Square. Jaw."

Completely absurd. We can never completely relieve ourselves of these kinds of biases, and of politics. But I believe we can mitigate it to a meaningful degree. We can have meaningful standards and metrics for evaluating people for certain roles. Horowitz talks about this kind of politics-mitigation in at least one chapter in his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

[1] The Law Project. (2021, January 16). The Law Project. Retrieved from https://www.thelawproject.com.au/insights/attractiveness-bia.... (The relevant HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24044409)

When you are sixty, less of your life remains, so the stakes are lower. If you piss someone off to the point that they do you in - who cares?

Then it damned on me: I couldn't really remember any other awkward nor embarrassing moments by others. All I cared about was I.

Relief. :D

It isn’t likely that nobody thinks about me at all, given that I think about everyone else quite a bit.

Whoever coined this mildly amusing canard sounds a bit antisocial.

That's what changes over time.

I find myself drawn to these types--they may have asshole-ish moments or nice moments. That doesn't matter as much as my personal connection to them, the sense of whether I am rooting for them or not.

Well, I'm an antisocial shut-in so maybe this is a fringe opinion to have for our techno-monkey tribes. :))

Specifically, I strictly remember bullying this poor kid relentlessly during middle school because he (I kid you not) had lips so red he looked like he wore lipstick. You can imagine my shock when I later found out I was bisexual and that wearing lipstick is awesome actually.

Perhaps a good example of a positive "not caring what others think" might be dancing however you want; you don't feel embarrassed because you're not a good dancer you just do whatever.

Perhaps another good example is Bob is a vegan and hates that you aren't; now you don't really care anymore and can focus on eating the food you want to. Flip the roles, Bob eats whatever he wants and hates that you're a vegan; you again don't care.

If one is required to be concerned with not "being an asshole", how are risky ventures ever undertaken?