A Penny For Your Thoughts?

Monday, 4th April

A Penny for your thoughts?

What even is that?

"said when you want to know what another person is thinking, usually because they have been quiet for a while. Mind and personality."

Countless times people asks this question when they see and think that you're by yourself, quiet and possibly alone. So they think it best to ask...

Penny for your thoughts???

And they ask expecting either of two things. One thing, they expect you to ignore them cause deep down they don't really wanna know what you're thinking, they just wanna make themselves feel better for actually asking. They don't really wanna hear the real, just something shallow so they can go about their day feeling like they've done something significant in someone's life ultimately making it about themselves and not you.

The other thing they could expect is an actual answer you know from you. For you to bare their heart and soul to them so that they could really be there for you. They wanna know cause they actually care. They wanna know because they don't wanna you to feel alone anymore in your thoughts. They genuinely wanna help the best way they can which is by listening and lending a helping hand to you.

But the truth is, you never know which the person asking expects. You never know who's asking and why. You never know what response they really wanna hear. And if you think this, you begin to ask yourself...

So what do you do? You assume.

You assume everyone is either asking for the shallow bits with might be easier cause then you don't have to feel bad when the person disappoints you by saying the wrong thing or something shallow when you bare your soul to them. You assume what everyone wants is just to hear that "nothing's up" and "I'm fine" even when in reality you aren't. You assume to protect yourself, your emotions, your thoughts from people by building this wall around you so no one can hurt you with disappointments and unmet expectations. So you insulate yourself by expecting disappointments from people. You inoculate yourself by saying...

"If you expect disappointments from people you'll never be disappointed in your life"

You said it like a mantra. A chant. To keep you behind those walls you've built-up thinking it's keeping you away from the hurt, pain and possibly shame. Thinking it's a fortress meant to keep those people away not realising that instead of doing exactly that, over time it shields you in. It begins to do too good a job that it not only keeps people away but also keeps you locked in. Until you're all alone.

You begin to lose yourself, isolate yourself from the world, detach from people who most certainly care about you but you're too afraid to let them in giving yourself the excuse that you're protecting yourself. You'll keep saying you're protecting yourself that you forget to actually live. Live a full life filled with happy memories shared with people, loved ones, family.

It's indeed a vicious thing when you let yourself assume the worst in people. All I ask is that in protecting yourself, you don't forget that you have to live your life to the fullest.

Image source: pixabay.com