Repeat to yourself slowly and calmly again and again, even hundreds of times, “I do not need the approval of others,” or, “What others think of me does not make a difference.”

Contemplate these thoughts until you start to internalize them. Repetition will help you integrate them. Realize that you may have repeated many thousands of times the need for approval of others. Counteracting these takes many repetitions.

-from Rabbi Zelig Pliskin’s “Gateway to Happiness,” p. 289

ME: Especially with the contentiousness going on in social media at the moment (well, really at all times), this is an important message. Celebrities and other pundits don’t have control of your life, thus their opinions about those who disagree with their pronouncements mean less than nothing.