The Bitch Slap: Self-Deprecation is Crap

Learn. To Take. A Fucking. Compliment.

There’s where we’ll begin this Monday morning.

We’re raised to be polite, to compliment people and offer congratulations on a job well-done. We’re told to say please and thank you, respect our elders and never look a gift horse in the mouth.

When are we taught to be insulting towards people being kind to us?

I’m completely exhausted with people who, when offered congratulations, offer a quick thanks and then proceed to pick themselves apart with self-deprecating remarks. Here’s the rub: it’s insulting. It’s insulting to me and everyone else who takes the time out of their day to offer you recognition for your achievements.

A quick conversation on Twitter yesterday brought me someone who was raised to equate accepting a compliment as arrogant.

Accepting a compliment isn’t arrogant. To believe you don’t deserve one IS. You’re not above thanks or the ability to bask in a moment earned. You’re not above respecting the person standing in front of you, at the other end of an email or writing a blog comment. It takes only a moment to say thank you.

There doesn’t have to be a qualifier following. It goes like this:

Person A: “Hey! That rocked – congrats!”

Person B: “Thank so much. I appreciate it.”

So this Monday, enough with the self-deprecating bullshit, OK? If someone tells you congratulations, smile. Accept it. Say thank you. Respect the person who’s taken their time to help you celebrate a victory no matter how big or small that victory might seem to you. When you have a victory, remind yourself that there are thousands of people out in the world who would kill for a single triumph.

So embrace your triumph. And maybe your triumph is learning how to accept a compliment. It’s taken me years, but each day, I get better. My next goal is to get better at sharing my triumphs and helping others have more. Self-deprecation is insulting – to you, to those who care about you and even those who don’t know you from Adam or Eve but take the time to recognize what you’ve accomplished.

Quit being a dick. Leave self-deprecation to the stand-up comedians. You’ve been slapped.

http://www.j--a--c.com/ jamescampbell

I would like to say thanks for a great article. Now how about you unblock me on twitter. I was the victim of a scam, I would never intentionally dm you bogus free iPad crap. I am sending you a jump to conclusions mat.
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

See? All it takes is a friendly gesture. Lock that Twitter shit down. Change your password every 30 days. And forgive me for jumping to conclusions – my DM inbox is so full of crap from the spamming masses that I have a Zero Tolerance policy. I try to respond to every message I receive and DM crap kills my flow.

Glad you enjoyed the article and thanks for stopping by!
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Anonymous

ROFLMOA, I love it. Thank you. Been saying for years if you can’t accept a compliment you need to work on your self esteem.

Here is my response when someone compliments me “Thank you I accept that with every fiber of my being”
Tuomo Salo1972

But what if the self-deprecation is based on a fear of a negative future scenario – like you want to avoid being called arrogant in a later discussion on the same issue?

Example:
B has run a 4-hour marathon.
A: You’re in awesome shape.
B: That’s not true, people run 2-hour marathons.

Later it turns out there’s a 2.30 marathon runner in the same table. B has avoided being a jerk by denying his awesomeness. (Of course things like this rarely happen but B wants to have a peace of mind of not being accused of being a jerk and thus consistently wants to make people aware he knows how good he actually is. Consistent self-deprecating equals consistent peace of mind.)
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

Why would you belittle your own accomplishments and capabilities? Why not simply praise the other person’s as well? Self deprecation is still crap.
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Pullyourheadoutofyourass

Well, aren’t we a self-righteous piece of shit. What right do you have to tell other people how they should live their life? I’ll tell you, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT. Just because people are not like you, or think the way you do, or agree with every idea think is worthwhile, is no reason to think you can berate them. Not everybody is a sheep that will follow you blindly, unlike the people who actually agree with your viewpoint.
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

Hmm. Well, actually I have just as much right as someone who wants to stop by my blog and call me a self-righteous piece of shit. Aside from the fact that THIS is your online profile:
http://corvaircenter.com/phorum/profile.php?1,2006
which is obviously bogus, the commenters on my blog share their names and thoughts openly. And it’s funny that you left this comment on a post about the wish that people would invest in some self-love and stop with the self-deprecation. You might want to find a better post on my site to flame next time

Oh – and you’re not listed in the Yahoo! mail directory. Which means your email address is bunk, too. Thanks for bumping my traffic up a bit today, however!
http://www.ranepcs.co.uk Nick Rapson

Oh, the number of people that I could relate this to! Trouble is, particularly in this country (the UK) people almost seem indoctrinated in to not accepting compliments / congratulations. A lot of it comes from the phasing out of competition in schools – for example: Sports Day used to be about having fun, everyone doing their best and a lot of friendly rivalry. I was amazed when I attended my son’s first Sports Day a few years back now where the kids weren’t scored, nobody won certain events, etc. It wasn’t so much that they weren’t accepting congrats, it was that the reason for the congrats themselves were being taken away from them.

I’m totally with you on the whole “self-deprecation is insulting” thing. It’s not funny, it’s not clever. An ex-partner of mine used to question every compliment I ever paid her. So I stopped. I was tired of having what I said be disregarded so casually.

“He never compliments me” is actually Item 3 on the list of reasons she gave to my mother for the break-up. Yeah, she documented it for me. I did consider complimenting her on her initiative but then she took to sarcasm in much the same way she took to compliments.

Oh well!
Flip Side

This kind of thing is very relative. You may see a guy preforming who has a talent in a field you don’t fully understand and complement them for it. The guy preforming probably has been exposed to people who are far better and from their perspective it just would not be right to accept a compliment without acknowledging that. From this perspective to get mad at their self-deprecating remarks would be arrogant in that you’re acting as if you know better then the one with talent in that specific field what is worthy to complement.
just some guy

Well, some of us who prefer to be self-deprecating have learned to not even let other people know about those so-called “compliment worthy” things that might happen to us. That way it doesn’t have to be acknowledged, and no one has to feel bad when we fail to accept a compliment correctly…and furthermore why does there have to be only one way, “the right way”, to accept a compliment.

P.S. the worst is when other people like to spread someone’s good news around…it is embarrassing.
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http://pulse.yahoo.com/_DMKAYP3MSQGP3V4776ZBUS3HBU Anonymous

I’m an INTJ, I’ll piss all over myself if I want to and I’ll like! I’m an arrogant ass, fuck you and your empty complements!
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

huh?
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The Bitch Slap: Self-Deprecation is Crap

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