"Everyone gets a chance in the spotlight; you can have it when I'm done!" - anonymous

There’s a phrase in Psychology termed the spotlight effect. Someone experiences this effect when they feel like everyone in the room is staring at them. Newsflash: no one really cares about you (in a good way). Back when I was younger and under a lot of pressure to mold myself into the perfect middle school prototype, I used to think people were constantly analyzing my actions. I thought that, without a doubt, people were critiquing me behind my back and preying on my weaknesses. I can recall a specific incident when I was at the gym trying to stretch before a workout and couldn’t get all the way down into the splits. “This is embarrassing,” I thought to myself. “I can’t fail, I can’t do a half split it’s not good enough.” The thoughts kept coming. Even though I can look back and acknowledge how childish and insecure I was at such a vulnerable age, I can still remember that hot cheeks flushed feeling. I don’t know why some people feel the spotlight effect more than others, but for most of my life it highly affected me. It may have been an inflated ego (people want to watch me) or none at all (people want to stare at me), but I’m slowly emerging out of it into a much healthier adulthood. It’s not healthy to nitpick others for their actions and to feel ashamed or embarrassed for your own doings. The world tells you to be who you want to be, to follow your dreams and do what YOU want. There will always be the few who try and act as a roadblock on your path to success, but you can’t let them be the ones who keep you down. It’s not so much that no one cares, but they don’t notice your mistakes or your failures. People notice success. So the next time you’re at the gym and you can’t, let’s just hypothetically say, do the splits…remember that you’re trying and no one’s watching you fail. They’re just thinking that you’re a better person for pushing yourself to succeed.