By: Casey Harding-Brown

You probably read that title and thought, “Someone give this girl some Prozac!” But this blog isn’t about feeling sad, depressed or hopeless. It’s actually quite the opposite. The day I realized no one gave a f*ck about me or anything I do was actually one of the happiest and most liberating days of my life. That could have also been in part because I was indulging in some magic mushrooms but I still think about it often, and the feelings hold true.

Let me start from the top...It was fall in Boulder and some of my girlfriends and I decided to eat some psychedelic mushrooms and hike up into the mountains to soak up some of the most beautiful views in the world (I can contest this still holds true while being 100% sober).

As the mushrooms started to show their effects, one of my friends started having anxiety (buzzkill!). She went off the trail and was squatting on the ground surrounded by the greenest trees I had ever seen. I went over to her as she was mumbling something about how everyone was going to notice us over here and how sorry she was for causing a scene and all this mushroom nonsense.

I looked up and watched person after person passed us on the trail without even batting an eye. I myself tried to remember what the last person who passed us looked like (besides having multi-colored skin that seemed to be breathing) and I couldn’t for the life of me remember if it was even a girl or boy, young or old. I realized then that I rarely notice the people around me. Whether I’m hiking, walking around campus or out at the bars all I do is pay attention to myself and my friends (mainly myself).

It was kind of comical when I thought about it. It seems we very rarely pay attention to other people but have this notion in our heads that people are always paying attention to us. I mean how self-centered is THAT? Ha! But it is definitely not a self-serving mindset. Even if they do notice us, how often do they give a f*ck about what we’re doing? Probably 1/1000 times.

How many times have people worried about that pimple on their face, what school they go to, what job they have, the mustard stain on their jeans, or if these people on the hiking trail think we’re totally high on shrooms and that’s why we’re off the trail and something needs to be done to stop these hooligans?

Okay, maybe the ladder doesn’t happen as often as the others but you get the point. I mean how arrogant really are we to think that everyone else gives a f*ck about us and what we do, let alone notice us in the first place? As long as we’re happy and not disturbing them there tends to be no notice let alone an issue.

Although it’s a little different with family and friends, the concept holds true. Of course your family and friends care about you and wants what’s best for you/what makes you happy. But it usually ends there. For some reason though, it seems everyone I know, including myself, have these ideas that we’re all supposed to live our lives a certain way and accomplish certain things by certain times or else we’re failures.

For example- I didn’t want to go to college, it was kind of forced upon me by my parents. This is because they thought that college was what would be a stepping stone to have a successful and happy life and I am super thankful they pushed in that direction. BUT if I had been like my best friend and skipped college, worked my way up in the hospitality industry, became a manager of an establishment and was able to make a living and be happy, my parents wouldn’t a give a f*ck that I didn’t attend college. As long as I am able to sustain myself and be happy does anything else really matter? No.

That’s why realizing that no one gives a f*ck about you or what you do (as long as you’re happy) is one of the most humbling and liberating realizations you can have. Stop seeing your experiences as failures just because it didn’t happen how you or your parents or significant other imagined it would. We all want the same end result-happiness. How we all get to that point is completely different depending on each individual. Learn to enjoy the journey because that’s where the magic happens!

Oh, and my friend calmed down after I convinced her not a single person was paying attention to us and we got to a great viewpoint, overlooking all of Boulder and laughed our asses off with our friends as we let the beauty of the city fill us up. The End.