People care a lot less about you than you think (in a good way).

It took me moving across the world, hitting rock bottom, and being asked about the wrong country to learn that lesson.

Six weeks after my wedding, I moved to Taiwan. I was 22, shortly out of college, and my new husband’s willingness to move across the world with me sealed the deal that he was the one.

You really have to do crazy things like that when you’re young and naive because now that I’m a jaded adult, I know all the reasons it will be hard. But at 22, I didn’t have any concern that I couldn’t speak the language, had no money, and that the standard style of apartment in the neighborhood we moved to was hotel-style rooms.

It didn’t take long for us to realize that we were in way over our heads. We were working ten-hour days as teachers. We were claustrophobic, isolated, overwhelmed, and lonely. But I had a serious fear of failure.

We did not leave home quietly. We made the biggest deal possible out of moving across the world. We told everyone we knew, started a blog about it, posted about it on social media, made it a focal point of our wedding, had a going-away party, sold our cars and most of our things…we dove in headfirst, not even considering that it would go anything but swimmingly. We figured we’d spend a year teaching in Taiwan, then maybe move somewhere else for the next school year and the next. We could be gone for years! Maybe we’d never go back home! We were fearless adventurers ready to take the world by storm!

A couple of months later, we were at our lowest low. Two naive kids trying to learn how to be married while also living on the opposite side of the world from everyone we knew and loved in a place where everything was literally and figuratively foreign. Panic attacks, depression, arguing…it wasn’t the way we wanted to spend our first year of marriage.

I didn’t want to admit defeat. I’m not a quitter. I don’t give up when things get hard.

But at some point, you have to decide if something is “good hard” or “bad hard.” Is it going to be worth it in the end, or are you going to kill yourself trying to reach some arbitrary goal that doesn’t really matter all that much, anyway?

We had signed a one-year contract. We were supposed to be there for a year. How could we just quit after two months and go crawling back home to face our family and friends who would surely be horrified at our failure and judge us for eternity? Would they even love us anymore after such an embarrassing public failure!?

Fast forward to arriving at home four and a half months after our departure, following a detour traveling around Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and a six-week stint in Australia…

The recurring question started coming quickly: “Oh my gosh, how was Thailand!?”

You wouldn’t believe how many times I heard that phrase.

I very quickly realized two things: most people had no idea we planned to stay longer than we did, and many were so unaware that they thought we had lived in an entirely different country.

I had never (and still have never) been to Thailand.

“How was Thailand?” has become my little internal motto to remind myself that people really do not care about me as much as I think - in the best way possible. Human beings are famously self-centered. We assume all eyes are on us when, in fact, most people are preoccupied with worrying that all eyes are on them. I’m endlessly grateful to have learned this lesson firsthand at such a young age. It has shaped many experiences in my life since then.

We spend so much time mulling over our own decisions and shortcomings that we have a warped idea of how much other people are thinking about them. And even if they are, who cares!?

As the adage goes: no risk, no reward. By definition, if you take risks, some will fail. That’s not a reason to sit on the sidelines and watch the life you want pass you by. The moment that you can release the pressure of how your actions will be perceived by others, you open yourself up to endless opportunities.

In the end, there is no such thing as failure. Just another lesson learned.