Some internet critic with no profile pic doesn’t get to rewrite who you are.

Not every opinion carries the same weight, and the ones that reach you most easily often have the least behind them. A stranger who knows nothing about your life and risks nothing by saying it has produced a sentence, not a verdict. It still stings because criticism bypasses the part of you that weighs sources, which is worth knowing rather than fighting.

Decide in advance whose assessment you take seriously. Three or four names is plenty. Everything outside that list can be read, felt for a minute, and left where it was posted.