DUCK'S BACK
I love to watch ducks in the water near my favorite restaurant. I love to watch them dive and frolic. And, yes, I love to watch the water run off their backs. So when I hear someone say that something is to them like water running off a duck's back I know exactly what he or she means. I've learned to let insults run off me like water off a duck's back; they don't stick, they don't affect me, I've almost got to the point that I don't even hear insults, let alone feel obliged to respond to them.
When I was younger, I was hurt by insults. Every insult made me re-examine my performance, my conduct, my abilities and try to determine what motivated the insult. I also felt obliged to respond, sometimes hotly, to insults. I let myself become angry or hostile. I even began to hear insults when there was no insult, and all ambiguities were resolved in favor of the insult. As you can imagine, I heard a lot of insults.
As I began to avoid anger, problems with insults continued. Although I managed to avoid responding, I was still hurt: I took insults to heart, I thought they must be based on something I had done, some lack of skill, some failure of performance. Try as I might, I still lost sleep over insults.
It took a long time to reach my present stage. As I continued to listen to insults, I realized that they were of two kinds. One kind, clearly malevolent, was designed solely to annoy me, to put me off, to gain some advantage to the insulter. The other kind was probably inadvertent, thoughtless , rude, unnecessary, not worthy of the insulter. Once I categorized insults in this way, I realized that not only should I not respond, I should ignore them completely. A response to either kind of insult would be unproductive: Either the insulter would gain an inappropriate advantage of some kind or I would waste energy. Once I realized this, I soon stopped responding and soon after that I stopped hearing the insults- they rolled off me like water off a duck's back.
When we stop hearing insults, we still have to tune our ears to hear constructive criticism. Criticism designed to help us do better is different from insults. Constructive criticism, if heard, can improve our performance, point out defects we can correct, help us hone our skills. Every time we hear something intended to help us improve, we should learn and act.
Learn to ignore insults but listen to constructive criticism. In that way, we'll do better, we'll reduce the temptation to become angry and we'll reduce unnecessary sleepless nights
8-27-01
Archives 2001 Archives 2000 Archives 1999 Archives