becoming unoffendable

7/27/2019 Becoming Unoffendable

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Page 1 of 7 Aug 14, 2013 10:37:52AM

;-)

Munich Rathaus

Becoming UnoffendableNovember 15, 2011 ndoherty.co

I was at a busy library in London a few weeks back when a quirky, middle-aged lady started chatting to

me. About three minutes into the conversation . And thshe commented on the grand size of my nose

she poked at it once with her finger while laughing.

A few years ago, such an incident would have really upset me. I would have turned bright red and cursethat woman under my breath. Then I would have spent the rest of the day secretly seething, and feeling

very self-conscious about my appearance.

But what actually happened a few weeks back was this: Nothing.

What I once would have perceived as an insult had no effect on me whatsoever. The conversation

soon ended and I went on about my day quite happily.

Last week in Munich I had another (albeit small) opportunity to take offense,

when a German chap mistakenly identified me as an Englishman

- Im actually from Ireland.

- Oh, Im sorry. I didnt mean to offend you.

- [smiling] Dont worry, its very hard to offend me.

Tis true. It is very hard to offend me nowadays. In this post I want to share

with you the type of mindset Ive developed that makes me pretty much

immune to insults.

And then you can go post nasty accusations in the comments to test me out

Refusing gifts

Theres a story about the Buddha that I like to keep in mind.

There was a man who constantly harassed and insulted the Buddha, throwing all sorts of verbal abuse a

him. But the Buddha never seemed fazed by this. When someone asked why he didnt take offense, he

simply replied

If someone gives you a gift and you refuse to accept it, to whom does the gift belong?

Last week in Frankfurt I was writing part of this very post while waiting for a train. An American woman

approached and asked me for some spare change. When I returned a polite-but-firm no, she called me a

jerk and moved on.

That was her gift, and I refused to accept it . I shook off the insult and got right back to work as if

nothing had happened.
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Market in Munich

You always have a choice

I also like to keep in mind the words of Viktor Frankl in .Mans Search For Meaning

Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust and

went on to found . In the book, he recounts hislogotherapy

experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. He writes of the guar

taking everything away from the prisoners, all of their human

freedoms, in an effort to crush their spirit and destroy their will. ButFrankl came to the realization that there was one thing that could no

be taken away from him: his freedom to choose his reaction to wha

was happening to him. As Frankl himself put it:

Between stimulus and response lies mans greatest power: the

power to choose.

Its easy to blame others for our misgivings.

Its his fault this happened!

If only my boss wasnt such a condescending bitch!

I would have gotten away with it if it wasnt for those pesky kids!

I see that as surrendering your power to choose. Even if you find yourself in a terrible situation, or if

someone throws the mother of all insults your way, you still get to choose your response. Nobody can

.take away that power from you, but too often we surrender it ourselves

Standing up for yourself

I should clarify that Im not advocating you sit back and let people insult you repeatedly without response

(sorry, Buddha). You have to stand up for yourself every now and then, lest folks start taking advantage

you and your unoffendability.

I was in a hostel in Munich last week, sharing a room with three other people. One of them had a real

knack for waking me up. It was like hed been preparing his whole life for that one task. Hed get up at

5am, turn on the light, and start making all sorts of noise as he got ready for the day, seemingly oblivious

to the fact that there were other people in the room trying to sleep.

The first morning I let it go, choosing not to take offense. But the second morning, when it became

apparent that this guy wasnt going to figure out the whole empathy thing on his own, I called him on it. If

hadnt, I knew I would have carried the resentment around with me for the rest of the day, and probably

would have bitched about the guy behind his back.

Too many of us do this, methinks. We whine and complain about

how other people mistreat us, but we never actually say
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Page 3 of 7 Aug 14, 2013 10:37:52AM

Munich rooftops

Birds in Munich

. Whining and complaining is prettyanything to the offenders

pointless in general, but it also becomes spineless when you haven

brought up the issue with the offender first.

So, if you ever have cause to take issue with someone or somethin

instead of getting offended, take action to rectify the situation. If

youre watching a movie that sucks, stop watching and go do

something else. If someone pisses you off, call them on it.

And if you cant call them on it for whatever reason, the smart choic

is to distance yourself from that person, or just learn to accept their behavior. No good comes from

enduring an annoyance and building up all kinds of secret resentment.

The Stoic approach to insult management

I recently read about Stoicism as a practical philosophy of life. There was a whole chapter a great book

how to deal with insults. Ill share with you here a few of my key takeaways.

Lets say someone insults you intentionally. Their goal is to upset you. The best way to handle that is tosimply refuse to become upset. This not only stumps your insulter, but it also makes them feel complete

powerless. . How do yoIts like someone trying to kill you by shooting you point blank in the chest

think theyd feel if the bullet just bounced off, superman style, and you responded with nothing more than

a raised eyebrow?

If someone is trying to hurt you with an insult, it can also help to imagine that theyre a child. Because,

really, such insults are childish. If youre at a friends dinner party and his 3-year-old son comes up to yo

and calls you a poo poo head, youre probably going to look at him in amusement, maybe ruffle his hair

and then return to the adult conversation. You wouldnt take the insult seriously.

Unless, that is, you are actually a poo poo head, and not all that

comfortable being one.

Which brings me to another point: Sometimes we find ourselves

taken aback by insults because theres some truth to them,

. Like if youre losing yourbecause they poke at our insecurities

hair and someone makes a bald joke at your expense. In such a

scenario, realize that your reaction says more about you than it doe

about the severity of the insult. If you have a solid foundation ofself-assurance and are comfortable with your appearance, you won

take offense.

See, if youre really sensitive about your hair loss, thats entirely your issue to deal with. Instead of wishi

people would stop mentioning your receding hairline (out of your control), you could just learn to be

comfortable rocking the bald dome (within your control).

Anytime we think the problem is out there, that thought is the problem. Stephen Covey
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Crowded street in Munich

Likewise, if someone calls you fat and you get offended by it, I suspect that youre not truly comfortable

with your weight. Instead of resenting that person, you should use their words as a launch pad for

exploring your relationship with your body, and making it a healthier one.

The Stoics actually welcomed insults, for two reasons.

The first is best summed up by these words from Antisthenes (who was technically a Cynic and not a

Stoic, but I digress)

Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your mistakes.

The idea here is that . If theres a grain of truth to them, then they help poiinsults can act as signposts

us in the direction of our faults and insecurities, and we can get busy working on those and improving

ourselves.

The second reason Stoics welcomed insults was because they believed they helped build a kind of

. A man who has been criticized regularly in the past is likely to shrug offimmunity against criticism

future insults as no big deal, while a man who has never been insulted before will surely be left reeling

when someone first likens him to donkey appendage.

Along these lines, a Stoic named Cato purposely used to go against the norms of fashion in ancient

Rome, shunning the popular light purple tunic in favor of simpler, darker attire. As explained in the

aforementioned book

Cato did this not because he sought vainglory; on the contrary, he dressed differently in order

to accustom himself to be ashamed only of what was really shameful, and to ignore mens low

opinion of other things.

This mindset has definitely proven beneficial to me. I used to get

upset by negative comments here on the blog, or by people

disagreeing with me. But not so much anymore.

I encourage foks to put themselves out there online, and in the real

world, because you learn how to deal with other people not liking w

you, or disagreeing with you, or thinking youre a complete asshole

believe its important to learn how to handle that. Youre inviting

criticism, sure, but I see it as hardening myself against criticism,

building a thicker skin.

Again, imagine the guy who never puts himself out there, never puts himeself in a position to be criticize

What happens when he falls into an unavoidable situation where criticism is inevitable?

Easy: He crumbles.

Its (usually) nothing to do with you

Nowadays I tend to feel sorry for people who insult me. Granted, pity isnt always my initial reaction, but

give me a few seconds and I can usually reign myself in and realize that I dont have to take offense.


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View from the riverbank in Munich

Some people seem to be put out by the fact that I dont drink, and they act a little shitty towards me

because of it. I met a girl in England who openly mocked me about not drinking, and I understood

. It wasnt healthy, and she knew it. My teetotallingperfectly once I saw her realtionship with alcohol

ways shone an unflattering light on her drinking habits, and she resented me for that. The quick and easy

way for her to feel better about herself was to write me off as a weirdo, worthy of her best insults.

I once parted ways with a girlfriend, and a few months later she told me she was glad we broke up

because I was too free thinking and in love with the world. She wasnt being cruel Im pretty sure shedidnt mean it as an insult at all but those words really hurt me at the time. Being free thinking and in

love with the world are two of my favorite things about myself, and there was someone telling me that the

disliked those qualities.

It took me a while, but I eventually came to realize that those words said more about my ex than they did

about me. As long as I was happy with my world-loving, free-thinking ways, it didnt much matter what sh

thought.

With that realization, I was able to let go of the hurt.

Fuck, and such

Some of us insist on getting really offended by profanities, like the word fuck. As my buddy Trevor notes

this makes little sense

The only reason [some] words are is because we MAKE them bad some people havebad

chosen to interpret the noise of the air pressure of the consonant f, followed by the vocal

chords making an uh, then more air pressure of the consents ck, as poison to their ears.

And thats really what it comes down to: a choice. Nobody can offend you. If you choose to interpret a word as offensive,without your permission

thats entirely your business.

Some people get upset when I use naughty words on this blog, or when I wr

about . Or theyll get offended just because my opinion istaboo subjects

different to theirs. And to those people I say: You do realize that thousands o

children in the world are needlessly starving to death every day, right? If

youre going to take offense to something, I recommend you start there, not

with what some random dude writes on the Internet, that little thing you

disagree with, or wish your sensitive eyes hadnt seen.

Stephen Fry said it best

If I had a large amount of money I should found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world

is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases yet remain all

unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily

(It must be noted though that Mr. Fry surely has accumulated a large fortune at this stage, yet still no suc

hospital. Color me disappointed.)
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Munich opera house

Now, all that said, I dont advocate people go around shouting profanities from the rooftops. Best be

considerate and refrain from asking little old ladies how their motherfucking day is going.

Practical steps for dealing with insults

Alright, I feel a bit of a summation is in order. Heres a step-by-step approach to dealing with insults that

Ive found particularly effective.

1. Pause

When someone throws an insult your way, the first thing you need to do is take a moment. Just breathe.

Dont respond right away. Most people immediately let their lizard brain loose to respond to insults,

fighting fire with fire, and thats how they get themselves in trouble and say or do things they later regret.

So take a moment. With time and practice, that moment will become shorter, because youll train yourse

to instinctively respond in an appropriate manner.

2. Consider the intent

Dont even worry about whether theres any truth to the insult just yet. Consider the intent instead. If you

can figure that out, its easier to come up with an appropriate response.

3. Respond

If the other person is intentionally trying to insult you, or at least thats what you suspect, there are a few

things you can do.

One is to just completely ignore the insult, to pretend you didnt even hear it. Just act like whatever was

said isnt even worth acknowledging because its so ridiculous.

But there is a danger to that. As noted earlier, sometimes you need to stand

up for yourself and call someone out when they insult you. Because if you

dont, they may receive the message that youre a pushover, willing to be the

verbal punching bag whenever they need someone to pick on.

My approach is to ignore the first insult. If that doesnt work, and the

person persists in trying to insult me, then I call them out. You can say

something like, Yeah, I heard you the first time. Say it while looking them inthe eye and with an amused look on your face, and hold that for a few

seconds before going on to talk about something else.

Another way to call them out is to name the game. Ask them, You wouldnt

trying to offend me now, would you? Or say, Wow, my view on that really

makes you uncomfortable, doesnt it?

Again, you remain calm and appear as though youre amused by the childish game theyre playing.

Because . So let them know.insults are a childish game after all, and youre above that


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Random street in Munich

You can also respond to an insult with self-deprecation. If someone tries to make a joke at your expense

you add to the joke. Again, youre sending the message that you cant be messed with, that you dont tak

offense to silly things.

4. Contemplate

Heres where we switch from talking about outer response to inner response. Inner is more important,

because on the outside you can fake a good response to an insult, or a good non-response, but you may

end up secretly seething about it for months or even years afterwards.

And thats not good. You dont just want to unoffendable. You actually want to unoffendable.appear be

As mentioned, I dont worry about whether theres any truth to the insult whe

it happens (unless its an obvious falsehood and I can easily dismiss it).

Instead, I focus on delivering an appropriate response and save the

contemplation for later, usually when Im alone and have adequate time to

think. Only then will I consider if the insult actually has any basis in reality, a

if it points to an issue I need to address. If not, I can just forget about it.

Ive found that nowadays its almost impossible for me to get offended by fal

accusations. Im secure enough in myself and I live in line with my values. If

someone tells me Im a terrible person, I know its not true.

And if there is some truth to an insult fired my way, I take that Stoic approac

and try use it to my advantage. Not only does it help me discover parts of

myself I need to work on, but its also good practice for handling whatever

future criticism the world sends my way.

How do you handle insults?

This was a pretty long and comprehensive post, but Im sure you fine folks can teach me a thing or two

about handling insults via the comments. Have at em.

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