In this article, I will explain my thoughts on how to deal with any haters online or in real life. As a kid, I used to dread having haters, because some might really peak into my personal insecurities and use those against me. Plus, the fact that most of the ones in my life came from my own family did not help as it made me sink further into darkness. Throughout my self-help journey though, I formulated some ideas on how to deal with it which I outlined in the following post.
Documenting Real Events
I find documenting real life events to be essential, because in doing so, I know deep down my memories weren’t imaginary in case people pretend like they never happened. Just like I did about my post on getting fired from my first internship, I am sure the supervisor who mistreated me will wake up shocked someday that she wasted her time acting like that back then. If she stumbles on the post or if someone close to her shows it to her, she will dismiss it as false and change the narrative while I know that was not the case, because I wrote everything as they occurred. Sharing that event in a blog to build upon it and to inspire others to overcome a similar experience and have their own story to tell is a great way for me to grow from it.
Hate Is Imaginary Unlike Action
I am not sure why but I also understood that ,online, haters would only pile up once they would hear about you on popular online sources or if you are being talked about by others in their lives. At the beginning of this blog, I remember clearly receiving no comments, praises, emails, hate, but just plain nothingness. I did not even tell my direct family about it and not even my dog knew so even then, the rest of the world could care less. Rain kept falling, seasons kept changing, buses and trains kept operating, stars kept shining, sport events kept going, governments kept running, so on and so forth… I like how Paul Graham describes it in one of his essay called Haters:
A hater is obsessive and uncritical. Disliking you becomes part of their identity, and they create an image of you in their own head that is much worse than reality. Everything you do is bad, because you do it. If you do something good, they find a way to see it as bad. And their dislike for you is not, usually, a quiet, private one. They want everyone to know how awful you are.
I suspect that a sense of frustrated talent is what drives some people to become haters. They’re not just saying “It’s unfair that so-and-so is famous,” but “It’s unfair that so-and-so is famous, and not me.
I really resonated with his essay, because all of his statements really applied to my own family. What I like most is how he worded so succinctly thoughts that were hard for me to describe. The way I see it also is if suddenly, you reach a point where good things happen to you and a hater jumps in, it is not like your actions that lead you to those good things were wrong. You pursued what worked REGARDLESS and eventually some good came out of it. On the flipside, if nothing or bad things happen afterwards, all of them will ignore you during those struggles. So the actions are what reflect reality accurately, the external hate is only an attempt to stray you from it.
They Care More Than You Do
In other words, it’s them not you
Whatever online or real life hater that comes in my way, I just know that they wasted time and energy that they could have redirected to take care of their own issues. If you think about it, in a day filled with 10 min breaks in between certain tasks, someone is thinking of spending it writing hateful matter to you while you are busy thinking about better stuff like studying for an exam, a workout plan, any extracurricular class, hangout plans, hobbies, side-hustles, romantic dates, finances or whatever else that makes you happy. Not giving them a single second of attention makes their efforts so futile and in the future, they will have thought more about you than take care of their lives. Even random online haters can make you more popular and increase your surface area of exposure which would enable you to acquire a larger audience. So do not underestimate how much more upsides you can get out of this 😁.
Real Life Anecdotes
When I was in Madagascar back in 2019, I remember watching calmly a movie with a cousin of mine sitting right next to me on the couch who randomly then said:
“Do you like Madagascar better or Canada?”
Then I replied “Madagascar” just spontaneously, because I was just enjoying my vacation with nothing much serious going on and he immediately started a conflict by saying:
“Ah! So why don’t you come back and work?”
My response back then was: ” Well Canada has better education and it is widely recognized as opposed to Madagascar.”
And then he replied ” I know, but you are not contributing to the economy.”
Afterwards, he kept adding on like: “It shows that you are not from here.”
The same day he kept blaming me in front of random people while I was visiting scared hills on how bad I was for not coming back.
I was really confused, because he could not understand that MY parents brought me to Canada when I was almost three years old. I could not have made a conscious decision to book a plane ticket and get there on my own. I thought to myself that maybe he follows his own words and works hard in everything and is ambitious. Instead, he kept sitting on the couch not doing anything while his siblings were doing all the house chores and cooking. I even noticed that whenever his parents would bring up questions about his future, he would tell them to stop talking about it. Worse, he did not even realize that my family PAID for the house he was staying in and another uncle gave him and his family a freaking car. I never even mentioned that I donated to a local charity which I was not planning to, but I would have to bring that up just to shut him up on that. Since he mentioned that I do not make any economic contributions, how stupid of him to not know who gave him a shelter and a transportation method. I saw how he mistreated the car and did not care about cleaning the house or cooking. One time, his older brother went to repair the car, because it was broken and when his parents asked why didn’t he follow him, he replied happily: “I do not care.” Also, he proudly served alcohol to his mother on many occasions while laughing by seeing her drunk. If he holds me accountable at three years old, then I will not mince back on my words against him, because he was much older at the time he said those. Looking at the situation for what it was, it was clear to me that he was simply jealous and being a hater. What he did not realize is that all those words just made me want to ignore him.
That was not the only event when I would express myself normally to family members thinking I could trust them. Even an aunt that I thought could understand me and that I had a lot of respect for, because my own mother spoke highly of her, would text me back with a negative heartbreaking comment which still hurt me until this day. I told her how I would prefer to have a partner back in Madagascar and she replied in a mean way saying that it was funny because there are back here. She could not understand that I could not use my parents’ car and she replied mockingly yes, you have to go out. Although I still reply to her politely, I stopped putting any hope in talking to her beyond small talk. Then I came to understand that she acted that way, because her own relationship fell apart with her husband. I heard a conversation she had with my mother saying how men in her life are douchebags and how infuriating they are. I then thought to myself that all she wanted to do was to bring me down to her miserable level because I was in her mind a “man” that she fundamentally hated. I never understood either why family members tried to convince me of doing stuff like “why don’t you start a factory, we do not have any around here?” and then when I look at them for who they are, they have no desire to take risks as big as that and they do not even consider the sacrifices I made to get where I was. They assumed that growing up in Canada was smooth sailing and that I have millions ready to spend on any grandiose project that THEY dream of. Why don’t they do them themselves or why didn’t they before? Not sure, and I don’t care. They only wanted the lifestyles such as exotic travels, becoming rich to pleasure themselves and having nothing to do with the sacrifices behind their suggestions. None of them can match the same ambition that they wanted me to have. They follow what they want and then point fingers at others saying they are not doing the right thing.
Those events amongst many others with my parents made me become more aggressive about letting go of depending on any of them financially and even emotionally. They only bring hate onto one another as a way to not just punish but destroy the other person in any way possible. They only respect the member with money and status, because they see them as threats that can shatter their life comfort or will always be superior in discussions. Otherwise, they would happily mock them. I engage in what feels to me like a meaningful path and what I am naturally drawn to do. Living in such a way that only the present moment matters and feeling content on living a dream life instead of participating in their drama. I do not engage in deep conversations with them, because they are just good at cornering someone and having last words instead of having a good conversation. They are happily thinking of wrong things about you and wait for the right moment to let them all out when you are suffering as if that s DEEPLY what they thought of you the whole time. They mask everything else through acting good and welcoming you, but they secretly want you to fail.
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