Why You Shouldn’t Take Things Personally
And how not to.
“Not taking things personally is a superpower.” — James Clear
Unfortunately, and fortunately, nothing other people do, or say, is because of you.
It may seem like it is at times.
Someone cuts you off in traffic, and your knee-jerk reaction is to believe their insensitivity has something to do with you. You think the person who cut you off saw you innocently driving down the freeway in your car and thought, “I think I’ll cut that person off.” Someone makes a nasty comment on Facebook about a candidate you admire, and still, no, not about you.
A negative comment has to do with how they’re feeling about themselves and their life — their wins, their losses — their perspective.
Your teenager says she hates you and slams the door in your face. No, definitely not about you. Do you know any teenagers who are not absorbed in their thoughts and feelings, as we all are?
Learning not to take things personally has been the single most influential strategy I’ve implemented in my life to avoid drama and wasted energy.
It came to me when I picked up the book, The Four Agreements by Don Miquel Ruiz at an airport coming back from an 8-month stay in Europe, and it changed my life just as much as living in a foreign country did.
When someone insults you, cuts you off in traffic, belittles your talent — it’s not about you. Let me repeat that. It is not about you.
It is about them.
When we don’t take things personally, it gives us more power over our thoughts, feelings, and actions. When we don’t take things personally, we recognize the individuality of others, their uniqueness; we accept that other people are different from us.
Everyone has a different perspective
My perspective is based on my experiences, my upbringing — what I observed growing up — and all the things I’ve gone though. Other people have a different perspective based on their life experiences.
We each have our view of the world based on the circumstances we were born into, the part of the world we came from, our gender, and everything that has happened to us shapes who we are.
Other people’s perspectives have nothing to do with you. When you accept this, you recognize that the other person’s opinions of you do not necessarily describe you.
Taking things personally means you agree with what that person is accusing you of, and you don’t have to. You can choose not to allow it to affect you at all. You don’t have to give it any space in your head.
All human beings live in their own mind, their own reality, their own dream.
They are living a dream that is unique to your dream.
Signs you have taken things personally
- When you feel offended.
- You get hooked easily with one little comment or opinion you don’t agree with, it irks you or triggers you to respond.
- You defend your stance.
- You know when you’ve taken things personally when you defend your beliefs to the person you feel offended by.
- You dig your heels in firmer and defend your stance, your ideas, your opinions, your candidate. Your values are the ‘right’ ones, and you defend them again and again to the person you feel offended you.
- You know when you’ve taken things personally because you need to be right and make everyone else wrong. When you try to be right and make everyone else wrong, you are missing the truth that your opinions have nothing to do with those around you.
In this heated political climate, there are plenty of examples on Twitter and Facebook of people behaving defensively and acting on their offended feelings.
People are eager to defend their opinions.
They will defend their candidate who represents their needs. Their candidate doesn’t have anything to do with them either — yet they try and try to “convince” others they are right; that their values (candidate) are the right ones — even when their advice, or opinion, isn’t solicited.
When you take things personally your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflict.
Example:
You are looking through your Facebook feed, and someone posts something political, something positive about a candidate they like, or, more commonly, something negative about a candidate they do not like.
This happens to be your candidate.
You get triggered and have to say something.
You take their dislike of your candidate personally, as if they are attacking you. You decide to post a negative, divisive comment defending your stance on their post. You were offended by something not even aimed at you, but you chose to be the poison, and cause drama in that person’s life.
You create conflict.
This happens every second on Facebook to someone.
People are feeding each other toxicity, and those answering back to the toxicity — offended by a perceived attack — are also taking things personally, and adding to the drama.
Don’t take it personally, it is not personal. It isn’t about you.
If the person who first posted their belief doesn’t take it personally, they won’t be offended, they will just say, “OK,” and move on with life.
I use this tactic and have little drama on Facebook because of it.
Another way to see it
If someone makes an insensitive comment on your Facebook page because they are trying to cause drama, or defend their stance because they are taking things personally, try not to react.
Keep in mind, the person who makes the defensive comment is living in a movie in their head; they are the director, the producer, the star — everyone else to this person is secondary.
Your words, or your post, that ‘the offended’ doesn’t agree with touched a wound they have within them that they are unaware of — they are hurting.
Just don’t respond because it has nothing to do with you anyway.
I’m not talking about facts.
There is a difference between a negative provocative comment — solely to provoke a reaction — and a comment of a factual nature, like,
“…a primary measure of the national debt, fell relative to GDP throughout his two terms, from 47.8% in 1993 to 31.4% in 2001.” — Wikipedia.org
The above quote is rooted in facts.
It is not a comment to merely provoke an adverse reaction.
If a factual comment offends someone, you are dealing with a person who is deeply rooted in their own movie; you are not even an extra in their movie, nor do you want to be.
Your opinions are your point of view, your beliefs based on your values, according to the agreement you made with yourself. They don’t have anything to do with anyone else.
It is no one’s truth but your own.
Everything isn’t about you
When you live with so much perceived personal importance in your mind, that you take things personally, it’s the “maximum expression of selfishness” because you are assuming that everything is about you.
It’s not.
When you take things personally, you make yourself easy prey for toxic people.
The more easily offended you are by people’s opinions, the more you will attract those people.
When you let people’s toxicity and internal drama slide off your back, and have the attitude, like, ‘OK, so that’s what you think, good for you,’ you won’t be taking in other people’s emotional garbage.
You don’t have to be susceptible to toxic people; it is your choice; you decide who and what you allow to bother you, who you let upset your emotional state and piece of mind.
Twitter — a great place for practicing nonreaction and not taking things personally
If you need practice, go on Twitter.
If you log onto the cesspool that is Twitter and you have a strong opinion about a candidate — especially a female one — you will attract the vilest, toxic people who come out of the woodwork like ghouls in the night to defend their stance — beliefs — to the death.
They’ll defend themselves to such a toxic degree that this makes excellent practice for mastering the art of nonreaction.
The more you practice the state of nonreaction, the stronger you become.
If you do not allow other people’s emotional baggage to affect you by not responding, the less it affects you.
It works. Try it.
Nonreaction is an exercise in empowerment. You are no longer anyone’s target for emotional abuse.
When you don’t take anything personally, you will be more open and loving and less fearful of being vulnerable with those you love. There will be a lot less drama in your life.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering Type A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.
