Learn from your enemies
Your enemies can be more useful to you than your friends, because your friends can often pardon your weaknesses, but your enemies notice them and attract your attention to them. Do not neglect the opinion of your enemies.
Leo Tolstoy
If you’re reading this, then you, or someone you know, has probably had the unfortunate experience of being harshly and maybe unfairly criticized publicly. Some people go through life relatively unscathed and do not know what it is like to have some of the harshest insults and judgments be proclaimed publicly against them, that is not you. And despite what the most stoic of schoolyard rhymes would have you believe, words can indeed hurt you.
But as we’ve discussed, every single experience in life, even and especially the most vicious ones, offer at least some opportunity. This is about the opportunity that is offered to you by receiving harsh, vitriolic criticism.
First, however much you would like to deny your critics, there is a good chance that, at least to some extent, what they are saying is true. Your enemies won’t hold back like your allies do. And yes, they may have their irrational biases that inflate and distort the reality of the situation in a way that makes you look unnecessarily worse, but they are still the ones highlighting what is likely a good indicator of the part of you that needs to change; and you want to change. People you love are less likely to tell you the uncomfortable truth that something about you is not quite right, they may not even really see it themselves. Your enemies will tell you exactly what they think is wretched about you and there is value in their estimation, no matter how painful it is to hear it. If no one who loves you is willing to tell you that your breath stinks then how will you ever know to get a mint? Of course, ignoring your detractors is going to be the smartest approach to maintaining any semblance of self-esteem but if you can handle the fire for a moment it might prove useful to see what the harshest criticisms about you are and what you might learn from them.
Second, your enemies are likely to be incorrect which may help you in the long run as well. Lies can destroy a person’s reputation in a moment. The stain of some lies will never be washed off entirely and it is a scar that some have to unfairly wear for the remainder of their life and beyond. But there is an advantage to having people lie about you. Eventually the truth will spread (albeit much more slowly than the lies did) and now all suspicions of your malfeasances are met with doubt. In the brutal realm of public relations, you do not need to convince people of your innocence; in fact we have earlier discussed why even attempting this is the wrong approach. Trying to look innocent is what guilty people do, so it is not an advised strategy. Instead, you want the public to doubt your critics’ credibility, so the more outrageous their lies are the more likely any of their critiques, even the more accurate ones, will eventually be in question. Once again, this is not about hoping to clear you name necessarily, it’s more about earning the benefit of the doubt. Letting your enemy sound like a lunatic will help other people come around to the notion that maybe the original pile-on against you was not warranted after all.
Lastly, getting criticized ruthlessly today might be the training you need to withstand a similar or even worse storm later. Who know what is in store for you but learning to persevere even when some people don’t like you will prove valuable in a world in which offence is taken so easily. No matter how nice you are you will likely face unsavoury criticism eventually in your life so if you’re getting some of it now you can take it as a training cycle for something potentially worse. It’s shocking and disturbing for some people to find out that others do not like them. Just getting over it is easier said than done. After having experience finding your strength in a social media storm is unfortunately an ability you will need to call on multiple times in your life. At the very least this is a unique learning experience for you.