Life is meant to shatter you
I often want to say to people, “You have neat, tight expectations of what life ought to give you, but you won’t get it. That isn’t what life does. Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you. It is meant to, and it couldn’t do it better. Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition.”
—Florida Scott-Maxwell, The Measure of My Days
(ht: Brian McLaren)
In my ongoing quest for the perfect framework for understanding haters, I created The Disapproval Matrix**. (With a deep bow to its inspiration.) This is one way to separate haterade from productive feedback. Here’s how the quadrants break down:
Critics: These are smart people who know something about your field. They are taking a hard look at your work and are not loving it. You’ll probably want to listen to what they have to say, and make some adjustments to your work based on their thoughtful comments.
Lovers: These people are invested in you and are also giving you negative but rational feedback because they want you to improve. Listen to them, too.
Frenemies: Ooooh, this quadrant is tricky. These people really know how to hurt you, because they know you personally or know your work pretty well. But at the end of the day, their criticism is not actually about your work—it’s about you personally. And they aren’t actually interested in a productive conversation that will result in you becoming better at what you do. They just wanna undermine you. Dishonorable mention goes to The Hater Within, aka the irrational voice inside you that says you suck, which usually falls into this quadrant. Tell all of these fools to sit down and shut up.
Haters: This is your garden-variety, often anonymous troll who wants to tear down everything about you for no rational reason. Folks in this quadrant are easy to write off because they’re counterproductive and you don’t even know them. Ignore! Engaging won’t make you any better at what you do. And then rest easy, because having haters is proof your work is finding a wide audience and is sparking conversation. Own it.
The general rule of thumb? When you receive negative feedback that falls into one of the top two quadrants—from experts or people who care about you who are engaging with and rationally critiquing your work—you should probably take their comments to heart. When you receive negative feedback that falls into the bottom two quadrants, you should just let it roll off your back and just keep doin’ you. If you need to amp yourself up about it, may I suggest this #BYEHATER playlist on Spotify? You’re welcome.
** I presented The Disapproval Matrix to the fine folks at MoxieCon in Chicago yesterday, and they seemed to find it useful, so I figured I’d share with the class. It was originally inspired by a question my friend Channing Kennedy submitted to my #Realtalk column at the Columbia Journalism Review.
Oops!
“During the past century fundamentalists have made the imminent “end of the world” a central feature in their preaching. They insist we are living in the last days before the battle of Armageddon occurs and the universe itself dissolves in flames…. But their plotline is a gross distortion of the biblical texts. For the early Christians, including John of the book of Revelation, what was about to end was the imperial world of Rome not God’s physical creation. Jesus had taught that God’s Kingdom would come on earth”
(Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith, 62).
#ilovelaterm (at Señor Fish)
Why do we call the deplorable conditions in Bangladeshi factories the “free market” instead of “the whore of Babylon”? Is it because it serves our interests?” —Ron Osborn #revelation (at Seventh-Day Adventist Church of Hollywood)
Remembering today that even Jesus fell under the weight of his burden and others helped him carry it (at St Basil Catholic Church)
Fundamentalism is dying
But as the twenty-first century unfolds, the larger picture is clear. Fundamentalisms, with their insistence on obligatory belief systems, their nostalgia for a mythical uncorrupted past, their claims to an exclusive grasp on truth, and—sometimes—their propensity for violence, are turning out to be rearguard attempts to stem a more sweeping tidal change” (Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith, 2).
Much love to #Boston! #standwithboston #bostonmarathon
Signs will witness for you? What!?
