Live By The Golden Rule
Just because people around me act as if they are still teenagers is no reason for me to react as if I were still a teenager.
Since leaving East Lansing I've realized that a large part of why I was so miserable in high school wasn't the way people treated me, it was the way I reacted to that treatment. I let the horrible behavior of a few people make me so paranoid and over-sensitive that I assumed everyone wanted to be just as evil to me. If they weren't being actively evil at that moment, it was because they were setting me up, or because they didn't want to look bad in front of a grown-up, or they had some other reason to lie. If I heard laughter but not the joke, I assumed I was being laughed at. Beyond the paranoia and sensitivity, the other part of my reaction was the classic "hurt them before they hurt you." Not healthy then, and not healthy now.
I have to remember that the odds are good that the half-heard comments and stifled laughter are not about me at all, and even if they are, I need to look at the people it's coming from. Are they people who's opinions I give a flying f**k about? Chances are that they aren't. Easy to say, hard to act on.
Live by the Golden Rule, even if no one else seems to.
I've edited this a couple of times to improve phrasings. I'll probably make further changes. The most recent change was to move the picture from the bottom to the top.