Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

People get addicted to feeling offended all the time because it gives them a high; being self-righteous and morally superior feels good. Mark Manson

My aim is not to offend, most of the time. Yet I seem to be offending some of the people I love, a lot. How many of us feel righteous in our indignation. As one Pastor puts it, sometimes Christian subculture trains us not to have a chip on our shoulder, but a lumberyard. Our buttons are constantly being pushed, what are we supposed to do? This isn’t just a Christian thing or a religious thing, it’s a political thing and a general life and family thing.

Are we easily offended; we live in a culture right now where everyone seems to be looking for something to be offended about. If we don’t see eye to eye with them on everything they are offended. There doesn’t seem to be room for someone else’s viewpoint. Politically people are each on their side of the spectrum and offended by anyone else’s point of view. What happened to live, and let live? What happened to you have your point of view and I have mine? What happened to we’ll have to agree to disagree?

What are we to do with this lumberyard upon our shoulder? Aren’t we making ourselves ready to go up in flames at any moment?

Those who are determined to be “offended” will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt. Christopher Hitchens

According to Ken Wert the founder of M2BH here’s a test to see if we are too easily offended.

  • Do you explode in fits of anger over little things?
  • Do others say you make mountains out of mole hills?
  • Do you frequently take things the wrong way?
  • Do others feel they have to “walk on eggshells” around you?
  • Do others consider you “high maintenance”?

If so, your hypersensitivity is robbing you of happiness.

He gives us ten ways to stop taking everything so personally.

We can talk ourselves out of being offended by asking ourselves some questions.

Does this really matter? What’s the big deal? Did they really mean it the way we just took it? Were they really trying to hurt us? What are they really trying to say? When I grew up we used to say, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

We can put ourselves in the offender’s shoes.

There is a big benefit if we do this often enough we may become “too noble to give offense.” Didn’t we learn to not judge someone until we’d walked a mile in their shoes?

Assume a benevolent motive.

Can we assume someone’s language is clumsy, even ill-advised, but coming from a good heart? Can we hear the idea and ignore how clumsily it was expressed?

Practice detachment

When our identities are too closely tied to our opinions, and our opinions are disagreed with we may feel like our opinions we have also been rejected. We feel the core of ourselves is being pushed aside and crushed. If we want to overcome hypersensitivity we must realize our opinions are not who we are. The more we can detach our ideas from our identity we can live a happy fulfilling life with less opportunity to feel offended.

Learn humility

A well known religious leader once said that whenever he hears that he has offended someone, his first response is to stop and think if, in fact, he may have said or done something that gave the impression of an offense. If he found that he had indeed said something that could be construed as offensive. He would then seek out the offended person and apologize for the misconstrued word or deed. Humility is the friend of inner peace, and peace is a friend of happiness.

Love truth more than being right

If the truth, no matter who possesses it is more valued than the perception that you are the one who knew it first, then opposition to our thoughts and beliefs will be inoffensive no matter how offensive the other person is trying to be. If we are not emotionally attached to our position because we are looking for truth then, the truth will set us free. Opposition to our opinion will not be offensive it only allows us to further look for the truth.

Overcome self-centeredness

Everything is about me is a mentality that provides fertile soil for being frequently offended. Every word out of every mouth, every action or inaction, every look or lack of eye contact, all that is done or undone, all motives and intentions become a reflection on us. Wow, that’s a huge burden to carry.

If everything is reduced to how it affects us, when we reside at the center of everything, it is no wonder we are so frequently offended. We need to move away from the center of everyone else’s life. We need to allow most of life to be indifferent to us. My bad mood isn’t about you, and yours most likely isn’t about me. We are all entitled to our opinions, and your opinion does not need to match mine.

Reserve judgment and seek first to understand

Finish the discussion. Let the talk continue to its natural conclusion. So often we jump to conclusions, we assume ill intent, we create meaning to a word that then hurts and offends. We should resist the urge to jump to conclusions and we should delay judgment until the conversation has run its course. We may find there was no offense meant by the time we get to the end of the conversation.

Accept imperfection

When we are offended that others do not rise to our level of expectation we will spend a good part of our life being offended. We need to allow others to be human. We all have foibles, inconsistencies, idiosyncrasies, personality, and character flaws. We need to not be so judgmental of the imperfections of others. Can we relax, breathe, let go?

We are all imperfect. We will continue to say things we shouldn’t say, give looks that are taken the wrong way. We will say things that are taken differently than we meant them. Can we accept our own imperfections and those of others? Can we live and let live. Can we agree to disagree? Can we overlook something because we do not want to add to that lumberyard on our shoulder?

Accept ourselves

If we learn and grow, and improve, we will also give other people room to learn, grow and improve. Self-acceptance will declaw other people’s ability to offend us. When we are not easily offended we have more power to live our own lives because our life is not dependent on their opinion of us. If we can find a way to not take offense most of the time we will not be internally fragile, we will be strong, resilient, powerful, and able to take our place in the world even if most people don’t agree with us, our choices, our ambitions, our goals, and our outlook.

Can we believe that we are okay, and others are okay? They see things how they see things, and we see things how we see things? That sometimes “the truth” is not self-evident, that differing opinions are valid? That questioning is growth?

You can be hurt, not by what others think of you, but by what you think of what they think or you think they think of you.  Mokokoma Mokhonoanoa

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end. Please subscribe, comment, and share.

If you purchase an item through the Amazon.ca link I may receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon.ca affiliate program.

See all 3 images

Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better Paperback – Apr 14 2015

by Brant Hansen (Author) 5.0 out of 5 stars 12 customer reviews


 See all 4 formats and editions