Should it be tit for tat?

We have them everywhere around us, at home, in the office, at worship centres and even at religious and even at social events. And we wonder why such a person is after our every move, criticizing your every step and telling you how everything you do or intend to do is wrong. Sometimes you get the feeling that if the person had the power he/she would erase you from the surface of the earth.

This person may be a work colleague, a boss, partner, friend or even a neighbour. The constant attack of negative feedback throws you off balance and leads you to being anxious, reduced self esteem.  When you sit back and try to analyse the reason behind the sarcasm you cannot work out why they are so nasty and targeting you for their criticism.

“We all experience it once in a while in lives. Sometimes we are pushed to an extent of fighting back and telling them off. But on the other hand when you look at these people critically they might be having some problems which they see you as the perfect get away channel to vent out all the anger. I know of many people who had fought back to gain their liberty. It works after a few weeks or months but it gets nastier when the person must have strategized how best to keep hurting you. So for me I will always say never stoop low to such people. They are really never worth the fight and embarrassment,” says Rukaiya Shuaibu, a civil servant.

From research it has been established that people that are always criticizing others are deeply unhappy, have a low self esteem and perhaps even depressed. So they tend to turn their anger and vengeance on people they feel are doing better than they are in life. When people are depressed, sad or insecure often the world becomes very dark and they do see the enemy everywhere. And if you are unfortunate you become their permanent enemy. In some cases this behaviour is borne out of sheer jealousness they have for the success of other people, which they deeply resent to.

Some psychologists have also attributed this sort of behaviour to low self esteem on the part of the person being a thorn in someone else’s life. They project onto others what they feel about themselves. When they call you a loser, really this is a direct reflection of how they feel about themselves. It is likely too that they consider this how you think about them so they get the insult out there first before you even think of insulting them.

“When people try to pull me down negatively, I generally see it for what it is, insecurity and jealousy. I pity them and as such bear them no ill feeling. At most I just throw a smile to them whenever they start their pranks because trust me you can’t beat such people at their game. So the best is to ignore them,” says Halima Abdul-Azeez, undergraduate, University of Abuja

Do not let people like this get you down and remember if you are in any way at an advantage when compared to them their level of insecurity may make you their target. You can either elect to ignore them or help them but it is perhaps best not to fuel their misery by fighting back and aggravating their insecurity issues.