Those of us who blog about Ubuntu, or participate in Ubuntu forums, mailing lists, and other aspects of the "Ubuntu Online Community" all have something in common: We are subjected to hatred from time-to-time. Recently these are roughly of the form:
"Unity sucks and you are an Ubuntu fanboy for liking it."
The Ubuntu Code of Conduct has a guideline that we can use when we encounter "haters". It says: Be respectful.
This is simple in concept, but I've always sought something more concrete: a clean, efficient and effective way of "agreeing to disagree".
Then the other day while doing some research, I stumbled upon this *gem* from Darren Rowse (who was quoting a Buddhist monk) over at ProBlogger:
When someone attacks you with anger and hatred
say to them:
“thank you for your ‘gift’ – but I think you can
keep it for yourself.”
It is easy to take on the anger of other people and
to wear it as a burden of your own but it is usually
unhealthy to do so.
I'll be using that line from now on. :)
You can read the whole article here. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/02/16/what-a-buddhist-monk-taugh...
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image by Andrew Senay (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/senay7/