Someone with no loops in letter ‘d’ does not bother much about others’ views

Often, we cannot brush aside nonconstructive criticism and start getting affected by them. Someone who bothers a lot about others usually carries a loop in letter ‘d’ in their handwriting. Know more about loops in the letter

I don’t know this lady in the picture. But I believe we’ll get along well because we probably think alike. Because looking at her gesture, I think we share our fondness for lady’s finger (okra). I love okra fries. I think the woman is probably invalid and through the gesture she is imploring her husband to go the market and buy the vegetable, ensuring that none of them are smaller than her middle finger.

I’m sure the protectors and guardians of obscene gestures are going to look down upon me with utmost disdain and derision for having misinterpreted the woman’s indication of intent. According to them, even an infant can understand that the lady in question is not at all referring to anything edible; she is probably showing her long finger to her loathsome, hateful, obnoxious and abusive boss. So, Guardian Angels, please attribute this daft interpretation of the term to my naïveté and pardon me. If you read what follows in subsequent paragraphs, I promise you’ll see that I am looking at the upright gesture in a slightly different way.

Many of us must have used this gesture several times in the past. The sign is used mostly to exhibit emotions such as resentment, anger, antagonism, bitterness, hatred, disgust and irritability. But I haven’t chosen this gesture on Write Choice to discuss any of these emotions: I’ll use it here to illustrate what I call “I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude”.

Can you brush aside nonconstructive criticism?

I understand that for many of us, I-give-it-a-shit attitude borders “defiance, disobedience, insolence and insubordination to boot”. But minus all the negativity implied in the four words within quotes, does the term become useless and insignificant? My opinion is: No, it doesn’t. What remains of the term, after we carefully sieve all the negativity, is the subject of our discussion here.

It means we’re not talking here about people who are defiant, disobedient, insolent and insubordinate; we’re referring to people who use the term to brush aside nonconstructive criticism and laugh off mindless remarks tossed at them — wittingly or unwittingly; we’re talking about the attitude that protects the ego from being bruised by stray statements.

The point is that if we don’t disregard and discount all disapproval and disparagement, we’ll impair our productivity and surely deteriorate our efficiency. For example, many students desist from asking questions in the classroom because they fear being snubbed by the teacher and thereafter “becoming a butt of joke” among classmates. But in reality, they become a “butt of joke” but in their imagination. Psychologists trace the root of such fears among students to a mortifying incident/s in the past, which caused inhibitions or engendered shyness.

Replaying negative comments in mind?

Likewise, many working professionals are hit by similar fears. Meet Ms Sandhya; she’s one of them. Sandhya is an accomplished worker. But when her colleague, Amit, make any “negative” remark on her work, style of functioning, behaviour or her dress for that matter, she loses sleep and becomes resentful towards him. When she goes home, she replays Amit’s words over and over again in her mind, takes all the criticism personally, produces plenty of rancour and plans to “give it back” to him. In the next few weeks, she might even “give it back to him”, but it’s unlikely that she will cease to experience pain caused by identical problems in the future. Because last week it was Amit, next week it could be Sumit, and the week after that it may be Sujit.

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