GeneralJist said:
ok, well it was not my ORIGINAL INTENTION, shrugs I'll shut up now…
I think we are at the core to answer your question.
Likely there is nothing you can do about people ranting or using violent language. But if that's a problem, you can change your behavior to minimize their motivation to do so.
Taking this thread as an example, i see a pattern of bragging / pretending success:
GeneralJist said:
Is my success really that threatening?
You imply to be more successful than your audience, triggering some responses like:
m_waddams said:
Please tell us about your success.
JoeJ said:
Now of coarse we wanna know how many sold books that means. We all have a need for a 2nd job, so why not writing a book?
a light breeze said:
… and then turn around and hand out advice from up high.
The responses, harsh or gentle, converge at a similar behaviors. The audience tries to turn your success into something minor and jokes about it, to pull you down from your high horse.
Now i'm no psychologist, but i assume you have built up this high horse in an attempt of self confirmation. And it worked for you, so it became a habit.
And now you wonder why, although it works for you, it does not work for your audience. E.g., you feel like you don't get the respect you would expect considering your success.
But the reason to that is simple: The audience simply does not buy your claim of success. The claim feels pretended and lacks proof. It feels made up and generates doubt.
After that, the discussion circles about disrupting the claim a lot, to figure out what's real.
The irony is: You may have build up the habit as a mechanism of self defense, and the critical response you get now also is self defense of the audience aiming to pull you down from the high horse to get even.
At this point we're stuck, and the obvious solution seems to change your habit. Respect or reputation is not something you can request or expect, and maybe you should not even care about it, to get it for free in the end.
