Question: I have struggled for the past couple years with co-workers. Many of them seem intent on making me feel bad by making degrading comments about me. I have felt targeted for ridicule, and as a result don’t have much confidence anymore. What is there I need to know about ridicule. Should I stand up? They continue laughing and I imagine it’s about me. It’s very painful. How should someone like me who is not real quick mentally deal with this?

Answer: I think you’re asking yourself the wrong question . . . The REAL question we have to learn to ask ourselves in times and places such as these is . . . why do we want the approval of people who can’t stand themselves?

Do try to see the truth of this by looking within yourself.

All cruel people are filled with hatred whose pain they think they escape by finding others to tease, blame, or otherwise bother. You are just the target of their torment, that’s all. Does it hurt? Sure it does, but only for as long as you want something from these poor souls who are trying to escape their own empty lives by filling themselves with their wit and ridicule for you (or whomever else happens along).

Next time someone says something derogatory to you, just wake up and realize that all that person has in the moment — his or her “raison d’être” is the miserable state of self that has them believing cruelty can relieve them from their own conflicted heart.