What would _____ think?

[ozkr]

I constantly have this problem in which my taste in music ,women , art ,etc. is still shaped by the opinions of people which I haven't even talked with in years!
One of those persons is my brother. He always critizised everything I did ,from the way I speak to the way I breath, and he always said that everything I did was wrong for some reason or another,and said it with such certainty and confidence that it made his criticism feel like he was just telling me the truth about something obvious instead of saying something bad just to annoy me (or just because he was annoyed) .

The problem is that even though I haven't talked to him in a while, I still feel his influence in my decisions and because he is not the only one to make me feel that way,I often ask myself "what would -insert influential person here - think if I did this or that?" And because of that I often feel the need to justify the reasons why I do things almost as if I was defending those reasons against the criticism of this influential people.
Sometimes I just feel very insecure and let them influence my thoughts and actions completely...

Has any of you ever had a similar problem? Has anyone ever been able to overcome a problem like this?

 

[Thelema]

I feel the exact same way. Except for me it is my mother.

 

[themousethatroared]

The influence that my brother had on my musical tastes and other things has been huge. I think there may have been a certain disagreement of his over my musical tastes. Regardless of this I still feel linked to him as in if I know that if he likes this kind of music then it is good and that if I like it too that is a relief to me. If he doesn't like it than I question why I like it and maybe I shouldn't. This would bother me a lot. I felt like I could only be sure of the quality of something if he liked it. An older brother has a big effect on younger ones.
Over time I started to say to myself that I could enjoy something on my own. I did not need to mimic him. My views are just as good as his. Everyone can not like the same things. People have different ears for music and so on. It did not happen overnight but I gradually began to aquire my own sense of what I liked.
Just like me and you would not share exactly the same tastes but that does not make any of our likes better than the others. Explore yourself and what you think you really like. Good Luck.

 

[ozkr]

Over time I started to say to myself that I could enjoy something on my own. I did not need to mimic him. My views are just as good as his. Everyone can not like the same things. People have different ears for music and so on. It did not happen overnight but I gradually began to aquire my own sense of what I liked.
Just like me and you would not share exactly the same tastes but that does not make any of our likes better than the others. Explore yourself and what you think you really like. Good Luck.

You're right. I know that I doubt my own tastes because of what people might think of me,but I wonder what made my brother feel so sure that his tastes were right and mine sucked? They're not,as they're just subjective to the person,but some assholes will not think twice about telling you that when you're kind of vulnerable, which is when their opinions impacted me the most,and got stuck in my head.

I've trying to focus on this problem lately because it doesn't let think freely, but I hope I will eventually keep other's opinions from overlapping with mine.