In the Bronx Tale, Sonny, a mafia boss, takes a neighborhood kid under his wing. When the boy struggles with challenges from his father, his friends or society, Sonny say, “What they think doesn’t matter. They don’t care about you so why should you care about them? Nobody cares. Nobody cares.”
I loved that movie. It made such an impact on me, that nearly 30 years after seeing it, I can still hear Sonny (Chaz Palminteri) saying “Nobody cares” over and over.
When I saw the Bronx Tale, I was 25 years old. I hadn’t learned that lesson yet.
I was bouncing from crappy job to crappy job. I was struggling financially. I wanted to make a good impression on the people around me. I wanted to be admired and respected. I wanted to be a good man but also to be seen as a good man.
It makes me smile now to think how naive I was back then.
Nobody cares. Everyone is too busy paying attention to themself.
There might be a few exceptions – my wife cared, a few of my mentors cared, to a small extent my friends cared.
But generally, nobody paid any attention whatsoever to anything I accomplished or didn’t accomplish.
It wasn’t until my mid 30s, that I fully absorbed this. It changed the trajectory of my life.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with everyone being primarily concerned with themself. And even if I did, that doesn’t change it.
If anything, understanding this has made it much easier to accept others and to find my place in the world.
Reality – it’s a good thing.