If nobody dislikes you, you’re doing something wrong
On the courage to be disliked
The energy I get from reading the Quran, from writing a poem that I will never recite, from eye-fucking a stranger, from walking shirtless in Manhattan in July—all remind me that there’s something more divine, more exciting, more lively beyond the realms of normalcy. These are reminders that I often forget about but leave me so refreshed after I do them. The common denominator here is fear, and nothing is more fearful than being hated by others.
When Chrissy Teigen got canceled for a now-forgotten incident years ago, she insisted in an apology tweet that her intentions were pure and that all she ever wanted was to be “beloved by everyone.” Imagine setting that as a goal, to be beloved by everyone. I feel exhausted just thinking about what I’d need to go through in order to achieve that: suppress my emotions, share only my most boring and safe opinions, fixate so much on how others see me that I fail to see myself. We don’t know much about who Chrissy Teigen really is because she was so busy trying to be nice to all of us. She probably doesn’t know who she is, either. There’s a reason why universal love is so impractical to pursue and impossible to achieve: it’s unnatural. The most NPC-esque desire.
But regardless of its attainability, why would anyone want that? The desire to be liked by everyone is a catalyst for turning into someone you don’t recognize, someone you hate. I don’t want to gain everyone’s love at the cost of losing my own. You will never be everyone’s cup of tea, we all know that. But you shouldn’t want to be, either. This also applies to romance, business development, and friendship: it’s much better to have a smaller pool of a “target audience” than an overwhelming, overabundance of people who claim to want you when you’re unsure of whether you want them. The desire to be liked favors quantity over quality.
Truth lies in being yourself and being yourself sadly requires the loss of others. Even if you, like Chrissy Teigen, wanted to be beloved by everyone, you’d likely fail because people are generally repelled by those they deem ungenuine. You’d think people will like you for saying all of the right things and being “nice”, but humans have a natural instinct to see right through your bullshit. A a lose-lose, really.
Someone once described the difference between people in LA and people in New York saying that LA people are nice, but New Yorkers are kind. Niceness is shallow and often remarked by symbolic gestures that are means to an end. It is ephemeral and almost-fake. But kindness, kindness is moving: when you are kind, instead of making a claim in good conscience, you show people your good conscience.
When you develop The Courage to be Disliked, you will be set free. You will no longer be bullied by the voices in your head telling you that what you’re thinking, saying or doing is wrong. Instead, you’ll embrace your gut feelings and your intuitive capabilities will prosper and you will have a much better read on what and what not to do. There’s nothing more liberating than having harmony between what you think and what you say. Develop a personality. Have an opinion. Stand for something or fall for everything.
I’ve always been skeptical of those who are liked by everyone. Surely, there must be someone who doesn’t like you. And if not, why? What are you trying to hide?
The best people I’ve met are those who I was warned about. Those people aren’t rude or mean, they’re simply unafraid to offend anyone and believe that
