When I was a student I had a classmate who used to call me nicknames whenever she wanted. She called me "Miniature bubblegum" because of my size, "Four eyes" because I wore glasses and even "Witch" because I had very long hair. His creativity to give me nicknames was endless. At first this bothered me a lot, but one day my grandmother, to whom I told how mean this companion was to me, gave me a philosophy of life that I still put into practice today:

_To foolish words, deaf ears.

Since I started to apply this to anyone who wanted to hurt me with their words, my life changed and not anything they say to me, she took them into account.

This introduction is relevant because this is exactly what a colleague tried to do, who once wanted to make me look bad in front of others. At the time, she and I shared an office and had become close in one way or another. She had a clothing sales business and every now and then, she would bring the merchandise to the office for colleagues and even students to buy. The idea was to buy these clothes on credit: you gave a part and then paid several installments. It was not uncommon to see my co-workers complain because they owed this sales colleague a lot of money and felt they would never finish paying her. But, every time this colleague came in with clothes to sell, the co-workers would pawn them off again. It was a vicious cycle where the only one who benefited was this colleague who kept a large part of everyone's salary.

The only one who never bought anything from her was me, especially because many of the things were of very poor quality and were very tasteless garments: that is, they would not have a long life in my closet.

Of course, she had tried to sell me anything:

_Nancy, I brought some very nice dresses that look like you.
She said trying to convince me.

_These blouses are fashionable and they sure look good on you.
She sometimes insisted. But I would politely reply:

_I have so many clothes in my closet, that buying more clothes is unnecessary.

I would hear this colleague making jokes behind my back, calling me miserable, stingy and even poor, just because I didn't play the game of buying her clothes. According to her, I had to do what the others did: buy just for the sake of buying.

One day, I had the bad luck to arrive at the office when she was showing the merchandise to some students. My intention was to leave the office, but this colleague said in a loud voice:

_I'm not telling you to come check the clothes because I already know how cheap you are.

I remember turning pale and then red with rage. My colleague continued the onslaught:

_Nancy, she's tougher than a pigskin - she said and burst out laughing.

With that laugh there was no doubt: she was using mockery not only to convince me, but also to hurt me. What she didn't know at the time, she later realized that my grandmother had given me an armor against human stupidity: "To foolish words, deaf ears".

That day, after that, I smiled at this colleague, but I never again had any communication with her. Because distancing yourself from people who do not generate anything positive for you is not only about setting limits, it also speaks of your self-control, your ability to remain unchanged even when people throw darts at you in the form of words.

The images are from my personal gallery and the text was translated with Deepl

Thank you for reading and commenting. Until a future reading, friends