Life is too short to argue with haters
"Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted."
This quote from John Lennon neatly sums up how I feel about life now. I no longer see life as an obstacle but as an opportunity. I learned to accept that no matter what the world wants me to think, I control my life more than I realized before.
I don't waste my time arguing with haters anymore because that approach leads to anger, hurt, and depression. I write to soothe my soul and hope it resonates positively with others. However, I receive occasional negative or even angry responses to my stories. I would engage with these people in the past, trying to learn what they found so disagreeable about my stories. I never connected with those people because they were predisposed to be angry at everyone. Their only form of communication was argument and criticism, and I made the mistake of dealing with them. All that accomplished was dragging me down to their level and turning me into another toxic person.
Most haters fall into one or more categories: sad, lonely, ignorant, or bitter. These characteristics are usually clearly visible when they leave toxic comments and remarks. I believe they all are angry because of something in their lives that didn't go how they wanted it to. Everyone has disappointments in life, but these people want to lash out at someone else rather than try to solve their own problems.
Haters believe that since they are miserable, everyone else should be. I have seen this behavior even before the internet. I encountered people who could only communicate by making everyone around them as miserable as they were. Even sadder, when they encountered others who were as miserable as them, they turned misery into a competition to see who could feel the worst.
MAGAts are the most glaring example of haters that I can think of. Their constant attacks on anyone who disagrees with them are tired and boring by now, but when they come after me, I tend to ignore them because they only want to provoke more hostility and bad behavior.
Engaging with haters breeds negative thoughts and feelings every time. I used to feel pity for them, as Kindness teaches me to do, but after too many episodes, I turned them off. I worried about why they attacked me. I must have done something wrong until I realized that they were the ones who were terrible. I never realized how much time and energy I put into reasoning with them until recently.
You never get the time back that you spent arguing with haters. Your life is yours, and you deserve to spend it the way you choose. You have a right to be happy. Don't let others make that decision for you because you always end up miserable.
Haters are emotional vampires who feed on negative energy and emotion that they generate to satisfy their cravings. Engaging with them makes you a source of nourishment for them.
I block haters when they first appear in my stories. I don't engage with them, acknowledge them, or respond to their comments. I delete their comments if I can and always block them from further contact with me.
My critical decision was never to acknowledge them by using their name. I might post something about how I just blocked a hater, but I won't give them the attention they crave by naming them.
Kindness teaches me to be empathetic to others' feelings, but this is easier said than done. I learned that when someone falls down a well, you throw them a rope and pull them up. You never go down into the well with them. As a teen lifeguard, I was taught that when someone was in trouble in the water, I had to let them exhaust themselves before attempting a rescue because panicked and irrational people would hurt the one trying to help them.
Hal is my rock. I can talk with him about anything, but when I realized that I was talking about my online encounters with haters, I knew that it had gone too far, and I had to stop dealing with them.
I don't need to prove myself to anyone anymore. I am comfortable in my own skin, and I live my writing. I love interacting with others, but only when it is based on mutual respect, something haters never have. My time is mine to use, and I intend to use it wisely from now on.
I am a big fan of Kindness because it helps my life have meaning. I focus on positive things, even being positive on negative things, like haters. Kindness doesn't mean I must accept unwarranted criticism and hatred from people I don't know. Kindness has its limits, and I discovered that rather quickly. I highly recommend using Kindness as a life guide, but like anything else, don't become so dogmatic that it loses its meaning.
I have what I need in life, and I discarded the things I didn't need. Haters fall into that latter category.
Be kind to each other.