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Word of the Day: Vitriol
‘And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate’ is what Taylor Swift sang in her song ‘Shake It Off.’
She is so right.
For some reason, vitriol is all around us, and if we let it, it will drown us faster than we can say retail therapy.
So, what does this new word vitriol mean?
Vitriol is bitter criticism or saying bad things about someone to hurt them.
It’s nothing new.
This type of harmful activity has been around since humans first learned how to communicate with words.
The internet, however, has put it on a whole new level.
As a kid, I was exposed to vitriol almost daily.
It’s tough to get past because after listening to negativity for a long time, we tend to believe it, internalize it, and then do it to ourselves.
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I think it’s one of the main reasons many people fail to live up to their full potential.
They not only listen to the haters – they believe them.
Negativity is poison.
Vitriol is the way sad, jealous people who are frustrated with their own lives and performance administer it to others who they see as lower than themselves.
I’m telling you today that the haters are wrong.
As the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle wrote, “Every man is my superior in that I may learn from him.”
Remember that quote the next time someone is spewing vitriol at you like a broken sewer pipe.
You are their superior, but at the same time, learn what not to do in life by observing them.
When vitriol hits you square in the face, do what Taylor Swift does and Shake it off.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 76.
The easier the passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.