Passions That Pay

photo credit: cdharri?on

A friend of mine recently came under attack online and was rather distressed about it. Unfortunately this is far from an isolated incident. If you are online and visible then chances are you will come under fire. This could range from harsh criticism to an all out attack on your person, your appearance, your motives, everything and anything in order to hurt you. It seems the anonymity that the internet affords, encourages vitriol and hatred to spewed out at random on the undeserving and the deserving alike.

So what can you do if you find yourself the target of such an attack?

1. Stay calm. Breathe. Do not take it personally - these people do not know you to have a true opinion on you. Their attack is more about them than it will ever be about you.

2. Ask yourself if there is a lesson or a message behind the attack? Do this dispassionately. An example of this is when I Dugg one of my own posts (I submitted it to www.digg.com ) and received a mild rebuke in the guise of a personal insult. I realized that there is a philosophy that says sites such as Digg are for what others think about your site and not what YOU think about your own site. I have sympathy for the viewpoint and resolved not to Digg my own posts again.

3. Keep a compliments file. It is very easy when attacked to dissolve into a puddle of self-doubt. Especially as it is important to examine the attack for any truth, it is just as important to recognize the lies in the attack. One of the ways of doing this was recommended in this wonderful post
How to Take a Punch (Without Hitting Back or Sinking to the Mat)(recommended by the lovely Nadine) which gives many further ways of bouncing back from online assaults. In the post, the author Sonia Simone recommends keeping a testimonials or a compliments file. Every time someone gives a compliment, you make a record of it. I started doing this this week and I already have a record of many lovely words said about me. Then when something not so flattering is aimed my way, I can pull up the file and have it immediately put in perspective again by reading all the positive things that have also been said.

Once you have worked through all your emotions, you can then decide what to do about the attack. Often ignoring it will make it just vanish but sometimes the people are just bullies and standing up to them is the only way to make them back down. Gather together others that have been abused in this way and decide on an effective course of action.

Then just let it go, life is far too short.

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