Cattitude: Looking to My Cat for Inspiration

No, I’m not talking about being catty. I mean deliberately taking a devil-may-care attitude towards the haters and nay-sayers. You know the ones: they deride, discourage, and find fault with nearly everything and everyone. They probably write only one-star reviews. Remember Mikey from the Life cereal commercials? They’re little Mikeys. For all the ones too young to have seen the commercial, it was significant that he liked this cereal because apparently he hated everything, so of course he’d hate this too, but *spoiler alert* it was an exception. Except for these modern-day Mikeys, there’s no Life cereal for them. They just hate everything.

There are times when everyone wants something and/or everyone seems to have something negative to say about a comment you've posted, or they misunderstood you in some way. This is when I decide to look to my cat for inspiration.

Also recognize scams. As a freelancer we can be especially vulnerable. We make our income primarily from our own home, often working remotely. You not only have to learn to ignore too much criticism, but also excessive praise.

Here’s my cat: a blue and cream tortoiseshell who has plenty, of what we cat lovers call, tortitude.

Here are 5 Ways to Have Cattitude.

1.    Know that the people who find fault with everything, don’t get joy from anything either. Revel in, and be grateful for, your joy.                                                                               

 My cat staring at the flat black thing that takes attention away from her

2.    Realize that they’re probably not the sort of people you’d want to associate with anyway. I found my cat Darragh on the street, she barely acknowledged any other people, she only came up to me, even gave me furry fives. She knew instinctively who to trust and who to avoid, which leads me to my next item…

Which she still does.

3.    Trust your instincts: Nothing threatens freelancers more than scams, sometimes people using too much flattery and being too nice is a red flag. Recently I’ve noticed an increase in job email spam/scams. Ever since I updated my resume on one of the popular online job boards, I’ve had an influx of all sorts of amazing offers telling me how impressed they are with my resume and how I’m the perfect fit for some position that they’d like to offer me. I’m apparently so impressive that I don’t even need to be interviewed. All I have to do is call them to start working right away. That’s amazing! NOT! Reality Check: Not even the president of the United States can get a job without applying for it. OK yeah I know he’s elected. But he’s had other jobs before right? And you should be especially cautious about the shipping scam. It isn’t just a scam, it’s illegal.

Darragh sez… “No way.”

4.    Keep working on your voice and style no matter what anyone else says. I can’t apologize for my individuality any more than I can for my hair or eye color. I was hesitant about my penchant for controversial subjects and my unique tastes, preferences, and choices, but now I’ve learned more, gotten better at doing what I love, so I know how, and when, to let my freak flag fly.

Darragh sez…“With only one eye I can still see” It’s the emotionally blind that don’t see anything.

5.   Don’t respond in anger. No matter how inflammatory a comment or critic, just wait. Wait until you have the patience and calm to properly address the individual. Or simply ignore them. Some people want to get others riled up, that’s why they’re called trolls, they come in and only want to stir up trouble, blunder around from forum to forum and thread to thread instigating drama amongst the tiny human crowd.

Darragh sez…“I’ve got this…”

We all have moments that seem overwhelming, when life seems too difficult. There are times when all your comments seem to be misunderstood and everyone seems to be confrontational. But remember all the positive interactions, keep calm, and maintain an attitude of Cattitude.

Hey, maybe Darragh needs her own Twitter account, since she has so much to say, what do you think?

Tell me how you handle haters. Do you give them links and evidence to teach them why they’re wrong, for the factually challenged ones? Or do you simply ignore them? Refuse to engage? I can’t wait to hear all of your interesting and creative ways to handle the not-so-friendlies on the interweb.

Layla Rose: The Goth Writer

#freelancing #blogger #writing #furrygirl #Cattitude

*Note: If you click the link to my website, please be patient as it’s a free site and not optimized to load very quickly. I do apologize. But as soon as I’m able to monetize more I will be upgrading soon.