I once saw this girl with the most positively shocking hair at a public event. Every inch of hair outside of a 1-inch radius of a tiny little ponytail at the top of her head had been shaved off.

I was not the only one who couldn’t help but stare at her. People were straight up gawking, and some were even gesturing lighting to their friends.

As I watched her, I noticed that she never reacted to the stares, no matter how befuddled. She never wavered from her nonchalant “I-don’t-give-a-fuck”-ness that seriously impressed me. It was as though she was in her own head, not about to be bombarded by others’ opinions.

What I realized in the next instant has stuck with me ever since that day.

In order to be completely comfortable, you have to numb yourself to the opinions of others.

Maybe I can rephrase yourself.

You should be able to draw all sorts of attention to yourself and not give a flying FUCK about others’ opinions, which will inevitably be negative sometimes.

If you do something and are able to ignore the fact that others may judge you for it, then you’re hardening yourself to others’ opinions that they can no longer limit your passions and aspirations.

I have no clue what the deal is with that girl and her hair. She likely made her hair that way because she enjoys the way it looks, not to make a statement or anything. There’s no way I can assume that. This is simply what I decided about my own self confidence after watching her face

It may be just a weak correlation that those who do radical things like dye their hair, shave their heads, dress provocatively tend to have higher self esteems after feeling the eyes of so many on them and learning to not ignore their opinions, but just not care.

I don’t think outward appearance is the only way you can do help your own self confidence.

I started doing something fun while walking around campus to get to class. As a person is walking down the street towards me, I try to lock eye contact with them. My attempts are almost always unsuccessful simply because most people get too uncomfortable and glance around, look down at their phones, etc.

My goal is to not be the person to look away. The goal is to force myself to keep eye contact. It’s a form of mild intimidation, I suppose. If I had to choose between being intimidated and being intimidating, I’d definitely choose the latter.

This trick is easier to do with strangers, so I started out doing that, but gradually added eye contact with acquaintances, and finally graduated to staring at people who make me really uncomfortable.

Yeah, there are some of those on campus. I guess I do that because it’s a way for me to get over the discomfort. I normally tend to not acknowledge their existence, which generally works, but when it comes to such an encounter as a one-on-one walk-by on street, this method of engagement seems to work wonders for me.

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