I recently saw a one-year-old toddler bang his head on a table that he was trying to run under. He cried and held a piece of ice on his forehead. Then he tossed the ice away and quickly resumed scampering around the room. The child had begun to learn that sometimes life throws you for a loop, and it can hurt. But he chose to “suck it up” and got on with his whatever.
You can only skin a rabbit once, but people whose feelings are easily hurt can get skinned over and over again. I think that overly sensitive, thin-skinned supposed-to-be-adults can be humorless, vain and all too ready to stockpile resentments and bitterness for years, and sometimes waste energy trying to get even.
In all fairness, it takes a heap of living to develop a thick skin. After the Chinese government severely abused his Country and his people, someone asked the Dalai Lama, “Why aren’t you angry?” He replied, “If I got angry then I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, or eat, and my health would deteriorate. My anger couldn’t change the past or improve the future, so what use would it be?”
A thick-skinned person can let go of anger, evaluate a situation and choose how to act in response. That is what Martin Luther King did. There’s a Texas saying, “A worm is the only animal that can’t fall down.” Why Texans think that worms are animals is another story.
As a professional writer and also having experienced the vicissitudes of life, I count my battle scars and rate myself among the thick-skinned, although that does not mean that I have lost my ability to feel for the needs other people. If my feelings had gotten hurt every time I faced rejection of my work, I would have quit a long time ago.
It’s a given that in the realm of humor, someone will take offense. If I wrote a funny article about turtles, I can promise you that some turtle lover would get his knickers in a twist. To illustrate my point: The best seller, OH, LORD, I SOUND JUST LIKE MAMA received many awards and accolades, but one day, when the mail arrived, I found a copy of the book in my mailbox. The accompanying note read, “I won’t read your book, because the title takes The Lord’s name in vain.” No one who purchased the other 250,000 copies of the book complained, but Boy! Did she get even with me!
So, to summarize:
Thin-skinned people need to remember that life is a balancing act. Unless you are a hermit, you have to deal with other people who can sometimes be rude and downright hurtful. Sometimes, when it’s important, you have to push back. Other times, it’s okay to just---let it go---along with the resentments. Pick your battles carefully because life is really short.
On the other hand: If you develop a skin so thick that it becomes an iron shield, you can then become oblivious to the real concerns of other people, and the price to pay is not feeling anything. No one wants a doctor who views his patient as a body part rather than a whole person who is in emotional and/or physical pain.
A doctor once advised me to have surgery. He said, “ I did the same operation on my mother-in-law.” I responded, “Dr. I have only one question. Do you like your mother-in-law?” A little push back can go a long way.
Esther Blumenfeld