Someone once told me that anger is weakness.

I didn’t believe it then.

But I believe it now.

To allow someone — anyone — to trigger a sense of rage within you IS weakness. You granted this person access to your most private, sacred space of all: your mind, body and spirit. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” Eleanor Roosevelt once said.

From now on, I can help you not become angry ever again — at least, not as a result of another irrelevant human being bringing you down. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado… how to NOT be offended.

Rule #1. Never Succumb to Believing the Offending Statement

I have a risque, yet very relevant story to tell you. A male friend of mine once told me about an extremely embarrassing moment where an ex-girlfriend of his once sat down on his schlong and then, after a few seconds of watching her face transform into puzzlement and confusion, she finally says…

“Um…did it go in?”

YIKES!

But, he said, he wasn’t bothered by it. Why? “I rationalized that she was a big gaping hole that couldn’t feel anything because she was a c*m-guzzling whore,” he said.

“Uh…wait…” I said. “Wasn’t she a virgin when you met her?”

My male friend waved the thought away. “Logic doesn’t matter when you’re trying to protect your ego.”

Logic doesn’t matter when you’re trying to protect your ego.

That being said, one of the secrets to not being offended is to never accept the disparaging statement as truth. Ever. And how you do this is by rationalization — and reaffirming that rationalization in your head until it is ingrained as true.

Someone else’s opinion is never a fact. For example, if someone were to come up to me and say, “You’re an awful dancer!” I would tell myself, “I may not be the best dancer and I could use more practice, but to say that I am awful is just an exaggeration.” And I would reaffirm this until I solidified this in my psyche as truth.

Rule #2. Understand that Hurt People Hurt People

It’s cliche, but it’s undeniably true. Some people, because of their own insecurities, feel the need to puff up their ego by trying to bring others down.

It’s why store cashiers tend to be moodier by the end of the day — they’ve had a tough time with customers so they couldn’t be arsed to make YOUR day happy either.

It’s why bullies — both online and real life — exist.

It’s why your exes will probably never speak highly of you.

Hurt people will hurt people.

It’s even easier to not be offended if you understand that the words are not a projection of YOU, but of themselves — and how they see themselves in the mirror. For example, there was a girl I once knew that had this weird obsession with pointing out strangers with funny-looking knees — and making fun of them for it. ( I personally couldn’t care less about knees and I definitely don’t think it takes away from their physical attraction, so I thought it was very weird). But then, one day, she expressed how insecure she is about her own knees. She looked at them forlornly and said, with sadness, that they looked “too bony.”

And then it clicked — she, herself, was bullied for her skinny legs back in the day. It really hurt her. As a result, she’s been subconsciously trying to relieve the pain by tearing down others. And quite frankly, it doesn’t work — especially if you followed Rule #1 and you don’t give a flying f*** about her opinion because, honey, your knees are DOPE! 🙂

Rule #3. Learn Not to React

Some people surprise people because they crave seeing a shocked face, some people love to tell jokes because they love to hear people laugh, and, unfortunately, some people like to offend because they “get off” on the bewildered reactions.

As the old saying goes, if they don’t have an audience, they will stop performing. In the same way, if you don’t react to their actions, they have no reason to bother you.

Here’s an example. In high school, there was a nerdy girl that kept getting picked on by the school’s volleyball star player. The nerdy girl would run around screaming at the popular chick, putting on a show for all of us to see — and we would laugh because it was quite entertaining to see her fly off the handle. And the volleyball star player got a “high” from winding up this poor girl like an old-fashioned toy and making her “perform” for us.

One day, the nerdy girl came up to me and said, “Why does she keep bothering me?! I don’t do anything to her!” I liked the girl and I decided to give her some advice, “You get picked on because she knows you’ll give her a reaction that everyone will find entertaining. I would suggest you be a little bit more, well, zen…if you know what I mean.”

Not reacting, truthfully, makes the offending party extremely embarrassed. It’s like telling a joke to a crowd and getting crickets. 🙂

Rule #4. Understand that Opinions Are Not Fact

Even women who I deem to be the most beautiful women in the world will find detractors who may not find them attractive — and that’s okay. They are entitled to their own opinion.

And what I’ve found during my 24 years of living is that people are SO offended by others’ opinion. Headlines are constantly splashing everywhere about some “controversial” statement made by a celebrity. And I always say, “ARE THEY NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE THEIR OWN THOUGHTS?!” Just because someone says something DOES NOT MEAN IT IS TRUE! So why on earth are you offended?

This rule might seem similar to rule #1, but it’s not — the main focus here is that we need to learn to be OKAY with the fact that someone’s perception of the world does not match ours. If someone doesn’t think Scarlett Johannson or Rihanna is attractive like I do, IT’S OKAY. If someone believes that one of my favorite movies, “Man on Fire,” is the shittiest movie they’ve ever seen in their whole entire life, WHO CARES?! If someone prefers to date blondes over brunettes, LET THEM LIVE! Lol.

Not everyone is going to like what you like — and that’s OKAY. Let them live their own reality, despite their delusions, in peace!

Those are my four rules to NOT be offended — if you have any more suggestions, please comment below 🙂