Confessions
So, I've felt persecuted based on criticisms of the INFP personality, sensitivity, or other views I've shared here, and sensitive to comments made about people or ideas that I hold dearly. I have often wanted to leave because I didn't feel my views were accepted, understood, shared or appreciated. However, at the end of the day, there's always something which tells me that these are my feelings, and no one has to share them. That's why I post most of my views in a blog
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I have taken things personally, but realized later on, that people are not going to care in the end whether I like their opinions or not, however insensitive they may be. Rather, I decided to own the feelings I had, and let them be my feelings. I think I learned the hard way to realize everyone's feelings were separate from mine, and we didn't have to share the same views. If I didn't like something said, I could argue with it, which rarely helped, just lead to more anxiety. So, it was usually best to step away and come back.
I also think part of it is realizing that people's opinions are their own, and often have nothing to do with me personally. People are a reflection of their own background and experiences. Of course, people can often be very cruel, insensitive, and dismissive of views they don't like or support, which hurts civility. And it is sometimes too easy to react defensively rather than see the other side or show sympathy for a very different pov, but it's possible to step away or at least step outside ourselves, and view spites objectively, as something that could be hurtful, but doesn't always have to be responded to. In others words, see it as a reflection of the person's own stuff, and not you.
At this point, especially after 7 years, I've learned to let things go more so now, although I've been passive aggressive to the nth degree on occasion when someone or something said royally pissed me off and really want to say something,
My observation is that people rarely try to see the other side, and focus mostly on justifying their pov, sadly, so it's misspent energy trying to get them to see how "wrong" they are. It's usually much easier to distance myself if something offends me or approach it more objectively to avoid seeing comments as spite.
And even if someone is going out of their way to be a pain in the ass to you, you can make it playful, and get some humor out of it, or just ignore them. YOU DON'T HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. Sometimes, just don't respond, no matter how upset you are or how much you want to punch them in the face or debate them. Some people are never going to let it go, so you may just have to be the person who says, ok, whatever, and move on. If you get too much into it with them, you're rarely going to resolve anything, especially if the goal of each person is to be right. So, yeah, that's my story lesson for today.