Can you hear the cogs turning?

I think at the moment maybe I have a little too much time to think. Although time to think is a new and exciting experience for me, it is also a dangerous one because I have a tendancy to over-analyse. So here I go…
I think that I used to be a person who was a little bit judgemental. I had certain views on certain things and used to get caught up in discussing the “scandalous behaviour” of different family members or friends who were doing things that I deemed gossip worthy. Not that I was an awful gossip or anything, and I never said anything bad about the person, but I took a certain pleasure from another person’s misfortunes, safe in the knowledge that my life was perfect. These days for me, however, nothing is certain, and my own experiences have taught me that things aren’t always what they seem. I realise now that nobody is perfect and that everyone needs to make decisions in life to make themselves happy, rather than acting to please other people.
However having said that, this is still not an easy premise for me to adhere to. I still worry about what people think of me and what they think of what I am doing and the decisions I am making. I am trying to find out who I am, experience life a little, and make myself happy. And I thought that I was doing a good job at being true to myself, actually I still do, but a conversation with a couple of friends earlier tonight made me second guess myself enough to still be thinking about it now and needing to get it off my chest.
Ridiculous conversations are often had at the pub with my group of friends, without the need for alcoholic intervention! Tonight a conversation started, on a general topic that began as a bit of fun, but carried on too long to just be a random conversation, and seemed to end up pointedly directed at me and one of my recent decisions. I felt that instead of making a general statement, the friend ended up sermonising, and I started wondering exactly why it was that he was pursuing the conversation. Don’t get me wrong- everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I ended up feeling as though this opinion was being foisted onto me in an effort to somehow make me feel bad and it left me wondering how I should feel and questioning myself. I felt as though my own ability to look after myself and to make educated decisions and act on them in a mature way was being questioned, although I’m sure that wasn’t the intention. I felt as though I was being judged and that his values were being used to read my actions when his values really don’t matter.
So after I left the pub, one of the other friends who was there rang to make sure that I was okay and that the conversation hadn’t upset me. The conversation didn’t really upset me, I just was unsure really of how to read it or why the conversation happened in the first place and so I am still a little perplexed at what to take out of the whole experience. I guess that I just need to remember that it is my life and that I am making decisions for me for the first time in a long time, that don’t involve considering somebody else. I know that I need to focus only on myself and what I know will make me happy (without having a detrimental impact on anyone else) but breaking that old mindset, the one that says “everyone is watching you” and “you need to be perfect” is difficult. It is something that I constantly deal with now that I have done “imperfect” things like breaking up my engagement. Can someone so used to being judgmental learn not to judge herself so harshly? Stay tuned…