Getting Angry When Someone Disagrees With You

The way you react when someone disagrees with you is another good indicator of your emotional resilience.

It’s also another prime example you can see in modern times. Although, it is hard to tell if the internet just surfaces these things more, amplifies them or it’s the zeitgeist.

My guess is it’s all three.

Anyway, the trend is to get upset and starting to yell and shout at the other because they disagree with you on a topic. Calling them names, blaming them for being stupid, and worse words I am not using here.

Bet you’ve seen those things too.

The topic doesn’t even matter, be it about left vs rights, skin colors, politics, religions, clothes, or whatever.

Besides the obvious problems, it’s pretty hard on the persons themself. Their skin got so thin that even the miniscule things pierce through and cause havoc.

Quite often this comes in combination with another issue - low self-esteem. And especially one that is tied too closely to the topic at hand.

For example, when my self-esteem is powered by my work, every critic of my work is a critic of myself. So, if Bob tells me my report was shit, I perceive it as an attack on myself.

Why?

Because I can’t distinguish between the thing and my self-esteem anymore. The thing became an external representation of my self-esteem. And every critic on that automatically becomes one of me.

Of course, that is wrong.

But people affected by this don’t realize it.

And when my self-esteem is low as hell, I try to protect it with everything I got.

The more I feel threatened, the more I scream, yell, shout, blame, punch, or hurt people in other ways.

The solutions aren’t safe-spaces, censoring, or outcasting the other opinion but to work on one’s emotional resilience and self-esteem. Learning to differentiate between yourself and your work, doings, traits, or whatever.

That will heal the world quite better than the current trends.