I have no idea.

To the title and description of this article, that is. I wanted to get that out of the way before I attempted to stumble my way through this subject matter. I have no idea what I am talking about nor do I have the answer for navigation of that intricate relationship between simultaneously caring what other people think and not caring at all.

For the creation of a fully functioning human being, I assume there is a requirement of balance between the two concepts - a thick enough skin to stomach the criticism matched with the wisdom beyond years to understand what is being said. Fittingly enough for someone writing on this very topic, my full functionality is laughable at its very best, and I sometimes question whether or not the chaos tumbleweed that I am is, in fact, a human being. Still, I figured the ravings of this lunatic, yours truly, might possibly maybe sort of in some way help someone else figure it out. That alone has got to be worth the try, right?

Plus, I talked about it with my little sister. And she means a lot to me.

The wise 11-year-old and I were sprawled out across the floor of her bedroom, staring at the ceiling and occasionally at the mountains of laundry around us I keep telling her to put away. Since she seemed a little down, I asked her what was up.

She told me that she was fearful of making other people upset. Really fearful. She didn't want to make anyone feel bad, and from the way she spoke, she seemed like she'd fight to her last bit of energy to keep that from happening. She recounted to me examples of her peers coming up to her and saying things that made her afraid of how she herself was acting. She told me some of it was from years ago, even in her young lifetime. "They may not remember it," she told me, her eyes a little misty, "but I do."

Before an enraged me could track down these little pests that had made my sister upset, I had to think of what I could say to her to make her feel better in the there and then. I opened my mouth to tell her not to care at all what any of them had to say. I shut it. That wasn't the right thing. But I couldn't very well tell her to care too much. That would only make her more upset, and it really isn't what I believe. But I couldn't come up with an answer. I still can't.

So we just talked about it.

We talked about how, in those moments where people we love are upset with us for our actions, the best thing we can do at that moment is immediately to apologize and ask them how we upset them. This girl is my sister. I meant and still mean it when I told her that I understand that feeling of crushing panic when someone I love expresses their pain and points to me as its cause. That is probably one of my number one nightmares, the pinnacle of painful moments in relationships that mean the entire world to me. So we talked about how one of the first things we can do in those moments is bring an apology to the forefront first and a focus on how to better ourselves second. That way, this won't happen again. If they are someone truly in our lives for keeps, we can work this out and we can learn a valuable something about ourselves in the process. If they are someone who brought this to us only to hurt us, then we have learned a valuable something about them that will benefit our hearts moving forward.

We talked about how once we have made clear our desire to listen to what they have to say, all we can do is that: listen. Because we are us, we have a tendency to believe we know us better than anyone else. Or at least I do. That phrasing is wildly confusing, but what I mean is that I often get tricked into thinking that because I know myself on the inside, I know exactly the kind of impact my words and actions have on other people. But that is the part that we don't get to decide.

That is the part that we don't get to choose, though I know I wish I could. When people that we love approach us with their pain and we are able to hear them out, we can learn things about ourselves we genuinely can't know without other people's help. This allows us to fix our mistakes through another's eyes. We should take this as a blessing of a chance, if we can put our trust in the person we are talking to, someone we love.

We talked lastly about the lifespan a painful thought should have in our minds. Our thought is this - once a painful memory and encounter have taught us what we need to know, it should be discarded immediately and without hesitation. I don't mean the lesson! What we have learned from the experience we file away carefully and integrate into who we are. But the bad parts of the memory? The pain? The embarrassment? The guilt? They should not be the chains that say they drive us. They only ever hold us back. These moments of other people's pain and disappointment at our actions are lessons and reminders, not shackles to keep us bound up in the past. Anything not useful to our growth into the people we aspire to be is not something worth dragging around.

My sister and I talked about the balance between caring and not. We don't understand it. We know it takes time. It is a delicate and vital balance to be struck in life, and we can only learn as we try. Out with the old and in with the new. We hold onto what we need, let go of what we don't, and move forward into a better future.