Self-Improvement Chronicles Part I

HELLO to my readers, as a thank you for reading my entries, you are all featured in the following photo ❤:

If you’re reading this, well I guess you have proved me wrong

I am back again to further reflect and question myself as a human being.

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In this day and age, bitter, spiteful, and blunt behaviour is celebrated; this behaviour is labelled as being “salty” and “savage” amongst millenials. Many memes involve savage comebacks or different ways someone acts “salty” in undesirable situations. And we love it. Not gonna lie, I love it too.

Let’s take an intermission, and I will show you some great memes while we’re on a break:

(insert meme examples of saltiness and savageness)

Get the idea?

To us millenials, this is how we share our unpleasant experiences in a humorous, satirical manner. This is how we bond with other internet users. Anyone can relate to the feeling when they run into their ex with another person, or when you have an annoying classmate that won’t shut up. How these people react to these situations may not be kind or respectful, but we are comforted by savage or salty behaviour because we can relate. We see that we are not the only ones that don’t resolve conflict in a respectful, altruistic manner, and it is a great feeling when there is a community that accepts you for your tendencies; even better if they encourage this behaviour. Being “nice” is too boring for the internet, in fact, can be suspected as being “fake” with ulterior motives. Instead, we love the idea of bringing the spiteful and petty thoughts to life, and find it hilarious. I’m currently one of those people.

If you know me, I tend to throw a lot of salt and engage in passive aggressive behaviour. A lot of times, I feel the need to act upon or vocalize my spiteful and blunt thoughts, because I see this as the only way to bring to attention that I am unhappy or hurt. Yelling and being violent would be too draining for me, so passive aggressiveness is the path I take. Without expressing myself in this manner, I feel like others won’t understand that I am upset, leading to them not taking me seriously, shrugging it off, and moving on with their life. Not gonna lie, it feels awesome to slip that snide, witty comment I prepared in my head a month ago for that particular situation. At the moment, it feels like I have the upper hand in the situation from making the receiving party uncomfortable, and that the “wrongdoers” deserve every single drop of spite and bitterness from my comment.

Yes, you can hate me.

Lately, it is finally registering with me of the negative effect that my spitefulness and passive aggressive behaviour has on other people, just like how you put salt on a wound. A couple of months ago, one of my friends paid the full cost for an escape room to reserve a room for the rest of our friends. Long story short, she was waiting for another friend to pay back her portion of the escape room fee. She was acting very passive-aggressive. Aggressively passive aggressive. The rest of us could feel the knives shooting out of her eyes and the contempt in her voice. Holy crap, that was one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world, and I wasn’t even the subject of her anger. I could only imagine how the recipient was feeling. From this example and other instances, I think I should really backtrack from this behaviour.

In addition to that, I feel like I should really improve on my ability in handling criticism. Both types: constructive criticism and uncalled for rudeness. For a while, I thought I was good at handling criticism. I didn’t let bad grades bother me or determine my self worth. I can shrug off hate comments. When faced with constructive criticism, I would listen and acknowledge the critic. However, recently, I was venting about a problem, and someone said told me “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”(Implying that I don’t act any different).

OK…

There were other times where I was faced with other forms of criticism. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I was never really able to handle criticism well. The truth was, I was only pretending to accept the criticism because I know that’s the bigger thing to do. In reality, I was only in denial and pushing the criticism away, even constructive criticism. Once I am in a situation where I have to directly face the criticism, I would acknowledge the critic’s opinion, but start internalizing it and then seeing it as a personal attack. Unconstructive criticism seems so much more easier to handle, because honestly, it sounds silly; like an 8 year old kid screaming nonsensical insults at you. All you really need to do is block those out, which I’m pretty good at doing.

Constructive criticism on the other hand, especially given by those I care about, is the toughest to take. To me, it currently feels like betrayal; like I am slapped by the hand that feeds me. Then there comes the spite and passive-aggressiveness I talked about in my previous paragraphs. Yes, that’s an immature way of thinking and responding. Probably the reason why I get defensive and act this way is because I know it is true, but I don’t want to face those problems directly at the moment when they are being addressed. I am too embarrassed to fully acknowledge the criticism right away in front of the critic, and let my pride take over.

As a result, I usually sulk about it, until after a while, I realize that I was being an immature wuss and try to clean up the mess I made. Upon reflecting, I truly do want to stop doing this.

I believe the problem here is when I am faced with criticism, although I do eventually take the advice; because of my refusal to lower myself, I don’t know how to react to it productively at face value. To help improve myself, I should keep a number of things in mind:

1. That passive aggressive comment might feel good to say, but is really worth having it out there 1 hour later?
2. Find a better way to express my dismay. Something along the lines of “Look, _______ is really bothering/annoying me right now.” If the person is just laughing it off, tell him/her firmly “I’m being serious!”. It would be best if I stayed calm about this, but if I am upset, I have every right to show that I’m upset. I do not believe it is right to invalidate someone’s feelings. That being said, I don’t mean screaming and throwing a tantrum. I probably won’t be taken seriously at all that way. I shouldn’t have to invalidate what I’m feeling, but I need to control how I act upon the negative feelings.
3. Be honest, but nice. If the person is not respecting you when you are in your most vulnerable and honest state, they ain’t worth it.
4. Respond calmly to criticism. Something along the lines of “Yes, I know now.” or “Ok, I hear you.” , “I’ll keep that in mind” or “I’m working on it”. If appropriate, calmly apologize. DON’T TAKE CRITICISM PERSONALLY. You are a worthy human being no matter what other people say!
5. If facing someone just being downright rude, be the bigger person by showing no reaction (so they see that their comments do not bother you, because they SHOULDN’T), or kill em with kindness.

To the reader making it this far, I appreciate your dedication and interest in this entry ❤. (And that you have no life, but perhaps you skipped all the way to the end, THANKS ANYWAY!)

As cliche as it sounds, I am not perfect, so there is always room to improve.

-V