https://personalexcellence.co/blog/critical-people/
Disengage from their Criticism / Ignore Them
Here’s an insightful story I’ve heard several times before, but never grow tired of:
Buddha was well known for his ability to respond to evil with good. There was a man who knew about his reputation and he traveled miles and miles and miles to test Buddha. When he arrived and stood before Buddha, he verbally abused him constantly; he insulted him; he challenged him; he did everything he could to offend Buddha.
Buddha was unmoved, he simply turned to the man and said, “May I ask you a question?”
The man responded with, “Well, what?”
Buddha said, “If someone offers you a gift and you decline to accept it, to whom then does it belong?”
The man said, “Then it belongs to the person who offered it.”
Buddha smiled, “That is correct. So if I decline to accept your abuse, does it not then still belong to you?”
The man was speechless and walked away.
Some people may voluntarily offer criticisms, even when you’re not asking for them. These criticisms may well be out of line and done in poor taste. One way you can respond is to retaliate in anger.
However, since the person must have a lot of angst to be voluntarily dispensing criticisms in the first place, your retaliation will probably only invite more of such comments from him/her. No sooner will this become a heated, ugly debate with one another – one which is unlikely to end well.
As they say about online flaming – “Don’t feed the trolls”. If you can’t stop them from voicing their opinions, then you have an option of ignoring them. Give a simple 1-2 liner response, one that acknowledges receipt of the comment but doesn’t engage further in the discussion. And if the person presses on, then just ignore him/her altogether. At this point, it’s obvious that he/she wants to ignite a response in you. By not doing so, you maintain your locus of control of the situation.
Just as the critical people need to take responsibility for their comments, we have to take responsibility for receiving the negativity too. With every occurrence, there is always the event itself, and our perception of the event. We can’t change how people want to act or say around us, but we can change how we act around them. We always have a choice. If we don’t want to accept the negativity, then just don’t accept it. The negativity is not ours if we don’t take it.
https://personalexcellence.co/blog/critical-people/
CAclubindia
