[Serious] How can a person "rejection-proof" their life?

To extrapolate:

People often say that one should not worry about what others think of them, but life simply doesn’t work that way. What other people think of you really does matter; point-in-fact, it can be everything depending on what field you go into.

Like say, for example, you’re a business owner and you’re recorded arguing with an angry Karen of a customer, the video’s posted online, and the internet sides with the Karen. Then, people boycott your business and you’re left without a livelihood.

Or perhaps you say something crass and get cancelled. Or simply anger or inconvenience someone with a lot of influence.

Or, even more horrifyingly, say you were assaulted and you came forward, and were ostracized and shunned by your community as a result.

How could one set up their life such that it would be impossible for people like that to rob one of their livelihood? How could one make it impossible for others to shun or ostracize them?

How could a business owner set up their business so that other people couldn’t simply shut it down on a whim in such a manner?

EDIT: I’ll just “be myself” since that’s what the majority of people in the thread want and repeat what I said to another individual:

Honestly, the way everybody is acting is really, really shameful. I am a person who made a thread and gave it a [Serious] tag because I wanted serious, literal answers to a serious problem that, given my chosen career path, will affect me at some point in my life and could potentially ruin it without good info to prepare for such a crisis beforehand. But all I’m getting is denial, mockery, condescension, lies, put-downs.

And it’s rooted in this desire to either pretend the problem is not real because you’re all secretly afraid it’ll affect you yourselves, or it’s because you know it’s real but you view it as a positive because ostracization and shunning people is an emotional cudgel you wield to silence people you don’t agree with on the internet, and answering the question honestly would require framing such actions as a negative and that would make you question the morality of your actions. And that’s not only sick, that’s just cowardly. If you believe cancelling people is morally A-O good, then at least have the temerity to threaten me with a “Don’t speak your mind and mask up” response like at least a few people were honest enough to do.

But don’t insult my intelligence by thinking you can lie to my face and pretend that something I’ve been personally watching happen to other people for over a decade is not, in fact, happening.

Now I came here for a serious answer to a serious problem that affects everyone. If you can’t participate in good faith and offer meaningful strategies to avoid or fix such problems and want to either misconstrue it as an emotional issue – much as you’ll do with what I’m saying here after the majority of you demanded I just be myself and not worry about the consequences – or outright deny it’s a real problem when it’s been real for over a decade, just don’t participate in the thread. Just go elsewhere.

Okay, I just acted like myself. Everyone happy?

vd1n,

Idk but when I was kid my sister made a Reject-Proof fort.

ReallyKinda, (edited )

if you try you’ll push yourself into a bad mental space that many therapists make their livelihood off of! I am a big people pleaser so have had issues with over-valuing the opinions of others. One important thing I did to combat this tendency was to come up with a reasonable set of principles for myself so that I didn’t feel like I always had to take what others might think on board (because I’d given myself a reference). Another thing that helped was eliminating anxiety around things I was quite certain one shouldn’t be judged for (in the sense that some things just shouldn’t reflect on your character).

Being worried about having your job taken away and similar is a bit different. I think the things you do to prevent risking this include not voicing “hot takes” except with people you trust and who understand you, avoiding internet arguing, keeping your boundaries up at work, etc. I think most people have a pretty good sense of what ideas might be wildly unpopular in their locale.

As a slight side note, things like tenure (in the US) and anonymous review processes in academia were put in place precisely to ensure that people weren’t blackballed for theorizing things that were unpopular or that would potentially step on the toes of some politician who was threatened by your research. Many things that are popularly supported have and will continue to be wrong, so you need a certain self assurance to fall back on. Preferably your self assurance is supported by logic and reason and not dogmatism—but this entails a fair amount of hard work and study and reflection—you can’t just rely on intuition.

ElBarto,

Become a hermit and don’t interact with people.

People are always going going to give you their opinions, but the best thing about opinions is that they hold no weight in reality, we give these opinions the weight to impact us.

Now, most of those people who were cancled over nothing or what would be minor in comparison to others, they have regained most of what they lost, look at Louis C K, he got cancled, but he’s now back doing what he was doing before.

You’ll never be able to avoid rejection or criticism unless you block yourself off from the world or only surround yourself people who think identical to you, but where’s the fun in that?

rynzcycle,

Like many imaginary worries (something that could, but hasn't happened) the answer to how do I avoid this 100% isn't just, "you can't" but rather, "you shouldn't".

Imagine the similar question, "how do I make sure that there is zero chance of being harmed in a terror attack?" While the consequences are dire, the chances are very low, and the costs of avoiding it completely are far to high.

And this scales with the level of risk and consequences:

  • do wear a seatbelt, don't avoid all vehicles
  • do check travel safety warnings, don't avoid all travel
  • do stay off social media while on booze and ambian, don't lock yourself in a windowless cabin with no electricity

Ultimately, it's (getting cancelled, rejected en mass, etc.) a new and very visable fear in the 21st century, but like a long list of worries, spending time trying to solve something that hasn't and likely won't happen, is a waste of our limited years here. Be a good(ish) person, live your life and IF rejection happens, do your best to deal with it as it comes.

darthfabulous42069,

🤔

blazera,
@blazera@kbin.social avatar

Silly, business owners dont argue with their customers, they dont work there.

darthfabulous42069,

🤔

jkmooney,
@jkmooney@kbin.social avatar

You can't. Furthermore, the consequences of "people pleasing" and "conflict avoidance" can do far more damage than the occasional bad rep. In fact, if you're consistent about setting and enforcing reasonable boundaries, you'll ultimately gain more respect in the long run.

RovingFox,
@RovingFox@infosec.pub avatar

There is no rejection proof because nothing is guaranteed in life. To be able to 100% guarantee something means to be perfect at something. Nobody is perfect at anything, perfection is only associated with godhood because it is realistically unobtainable.

SighBapanada,

What you think of others matters equally as much. Be a good person and be careful who you surround yourself with. Be descerning of different groups of people and their beliefs/values/culture. Being rejected by a group of bigots is a good thing, and you wouldn’t want to be embraced by them to begin with. There are countless historical examples of individuals led astray by group-think, so don’t be too concerned what multitudes think of you. It all depends on context, and wanting to be “rejection proof” might signal too much interest in one’s reputation, although I’m not accusing you of that.

barrage4u,

I think it’s less about “proofing” your life and instead embracing it. Seek it out. All good opportunities (your dream job, the girl you want) require you to take risks with a real chance of rejection. Get good at being rejected, even enjoy it, so that you can persevere and try and try again until you get what you want.

Tigwyk,
@Tigwyk@lemmy.vrchat-dev.tech avatar

How could one make it impossible for others to shun or ostracize them?

When you figure it out you can sell it to Elon Musk for billions.

livus,
@livus@kbin.social avatar

In a democratic society, there is no way to entirely "proof" yourself from consequences of your own antisocial actions like if you sexually assault people or something like that.

I think the answer to what you're really asking is

  • do not be in an industry where you are customer-facing or public-facing,
  • and do not seek a public platform.

That will shield you from arbitrary and exaggerated mob type/snowballing behaviour, such as the Justine Sacco incident (in which a woman lost her job over an ironic joke about AIDS which fell victim to Poe's Law).

Curious_Canid,
@Curious_Canid@lemmy.ca avatar

In almost every case, the best defense against this is to be a genuinely good person. Treat everyone with kindness and you will get surprising amount of support.

Jtlkybncv,

I would also love an answer to this question. I have worried about this issue a lot. One of the only answers I have come up with is to have multiple skills. So that if people “side with a Karen” for example, you can hopefully transition into a different industry and leave the previous industry behind. Varied skills in multiple areas are the way I hope to avoid cancellation

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