Notes on being unapologetic (and celebrating criticism)
“What other people think of you is not your business,” said Deepak Chopra. “If you start to make that business your business, you will be offended for the rest of your life.” Haters gonna hate. That’s just a fact of life, right? We might not know the secret to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone. It’s an impossible task, and thus it’s not really worth aiming for–but everyone wants to be liked. And perhaps I, speaking as a blogger and as a woman and as just me, especially want to be liked.
You do not put your whole life on the internet in the hopes that people will hate you, and yet: we open ourselves up to comments and criticism by simply being choosing to do so. All of this to say: I discovered that there was a forum on GOMI devoted to talking about how “opportunistic and shallow” I am.
To be honest, the first time I read the forum I felt a sense of relief. Most of what they complained about was true–just with a negative spin, instead of the positive spin I like to put on it. Opportunistic is just another way of saying I take advantage of the opportunities presented to me; traveling for Instagram likes is just enjoying to go to new places and take pretty photos.
I thought: this is what it means to make it! This is about celebrating criticism and choosing how to react to negativity, about taking all of those inspirational statements and actually applying them to your actual life.
But. BUT IT IS SO WEIRD to find a place on the internet talking about what an awful person you are–and not really having any constructive way to respond. You’re supposed to be able to let these things roll off your back, to choose to be thick-skinned as part of the decision to share your life on the internet. But nasty words have a way of sticking with you, of sneaking into your subconscious and throwing you off-guard when you least expect it.
And here is what I don’t understand: if you don’t like this site and you don’t like me, please feel (very, very) free to go away and not come back. The next time you read a blog post (perhaps this very one!) that makes you want to go complain about me, I challenge you to do something better. Read a book. Go outside. Call someone and tell them you love them. Take a look at your own life and contemplate the golden rule.
I can’t promise I’ll never read the negativity or that it won’t feel bad or that I’ll always be able to let it go. But here’s what I hope: that I keep living this life that I’ve created, and that it keeps inspiring more people than not. I hope that I keep traveling and writing and doing the things that I love, and that I’m not afraid to keep sharing it.
I want to create, instead of choosing to hate–and at the very least, I’m grateful to all the haters for putting that into perspective.
Since then (and completely unrelated), articles have come out about a blogger couple who are trying to quit the internet and about how the intensely negative forums of GOMI can affect bloggers. Worth a read if you’re at all interested in the subject.
