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| Photo by Brilhasti1 via Flickr |
A long time ago, on the Internet, in a Zumba instructors’ forum, there was this whiny little wanker who would stir up trouble nearly everywhere he went. And one day, he created a thread to whine about how some other Zumba instructors had called him a whiny little wanker on Facebook.
What a whiny little wanker he was.
In typical Internet forum fashion, the mob jumped in to ease his worries. “They’re just jealous!” He was praised, and pet, and plumped up, and fawned over and told how wonderful he truly was. And the offending parties were lashed and slaughtered and denigrated.
Then the inevitable happened: someone said, “Haters gonna hate.”
And that was it. All was saved. The whiny little wanker went on as if nothing ever happened and is probably still a whiny little wanker to this day.
That was all we needed to stop ourselves from having to consider that maybe what someone was saying about us might be a little bit true–oh, hell, no! They’re just jealous!
And this self-aggrandizing phrase didn’t slander our nemeses so much. They’re just jealous, after all. It happens. And it comes and goes, and maybe later they’ll feel better.
I’m not sure what happened. Somewhere along the way, “They’re just jealous!” stopped being enough. Maybe somebody realized how immature it sounded. Maybe somebody felt like it wasn’t enough that they were just jealous–they had to be much, much worse than that to call me a wanker!
And the creature known as the hater was born.
Now, anytime someone criticizes you, or isn’t all in on your thing, or bursts your bubble, or pulls you down a bit from that ego cloud you’re riding, it’s not that they’re right (god, no! It was never that!), and it’s not that they’re just jealous. No.
They’re haters!
They’re people who are so miserable in their puny little lives that all they can do is spread hate everywhere they go.
Don’t worry your pretty little head over what they said. It’s not true! It can’t be true, because everything you do is wonderful and how dare anyone else not like it? Or not like you! Egad. It’s just not possible. No. Only someone filled to the brim with hate could possibly have a bad thing to say about you!
Do you see what I’m saying?
Every time you call someone a hater, you’re being a big whiny wanker of a baby.
They’re not haters. They’re people with lives just like yours. They love other people, just not you. They laugh and sing and watch movies. Just like you do. They just don’t think you’re all that. They’re not haters. They don’t spend all day hating things. They just don’t think that thing you absolutely love is all that and they don’t mind saying so. Just because they say so doesn’t make them awful people.
Do school girls still run around in packs picking on other girls? Sure they do. But they’re not haters either. They’re adolescents.
I understand that reading literary novels makes a person more compassionate. Why? Because it helps us gain empathy for more than one view of the world: black or white.
So, go read some literature for chris’ sake. Consider that people who criticize you, or don’t like you, or think being perfect all the time isn’t a noble goal just don’t like you, and don’t mind saying so. And once in a while, stop and evaluate yourself.
Maybe what they’re saying has some truth to it.
I mean, after all, you are the type of person who labels anyone who dares to criticize her as some kind of evil villain called a “hater.”