Use Humour As A Defense
If you react to every insult that comes your way, soon you’ll be exhausted by the world and risk a breakdown. Just as you cannot swat every fly in the wilderness, you cannot fight every insult or mockery that crosses your path. Sometimes they reveal what people genuinely think about you — you can take that as feedback and improve. And if you believe they are mistaken, there’s a better response.
Counter mockery with humor. Find the most amusing reply you can without being spiteful. This not only keeps your cortisol in check but also makes your mind more creative. When you aim for playful banter, your mind relaxes, and it keeps offering you sharper comebacks. How many times have we regretted not saying something witty in the moment? That happens because the brain, on hyper-alert mode defending our biases, suppresses our clever and playful side.
Beyond obvious insults, it helps to take things lightly with people. Often, people speak simply to fill the silence — they don’t mean everything they say. We say countless things ourselves, yet remember only a few. We gossip, we bicker, and still stay close to the very people we gossip about. That’s because the human mind hates emptiness.
Cultivate humor, nurture good relationships, and engage in banter. It’s alright if you can’t counter every remark — play to your strengths, keep practicing, and you’ll learn the tricks of the trade. What matters most is not taking things to heart. Train your mind to stop seeing the world as an enemy. Once it realizes it doesn’t need to defend against every word, it shifts into creativity — and that’s what you truly need.
Every time you feel clever but fail to say the right thing in the moment, understand it’s because you’re trying too hard, too anxious. Let your brain relax. Don’t treat responding as a compulsion. Opinions are cheap and ever-changing. If you adjust your mannerisms, people’s opinions of you will change too. But first, change your perception of the world.
Stop seeing the world as your enemy, and you’ll realize it never was.