Asklemmy

if you try you’ll push yourself into a bad mental space that many therapists make their livelihood off of! I am a big people pleaser so have had issues with over-valuing the opinions of others. One important thing I did to combat this tendency was to come up with a reasonable set of principles for myself so that I didn’t feel like I always had to take what others might think on board (because I’d given myself a reference). Another thing that helped was eliminating anxiety around things I was quite certain one shouldn’t be judged for (in the sense that some things just shouldn’t reflect on your character).

Being worried about having your job taken away and similar is a bit different. I think the things you do to prevent risking this include not voicing “hot takes” except with people you trust and who understand you, avoiding internet arguing, keeping your boundaries up at work, etc. I think most people have a pretty good sense of what ideas might be wildly unpopular in their locale.

As a slight side note, things like tenure (in the US) and anonymous review processes in academia were put in place precisely to ensure that people weren’t blackballed for theorizing things that were unpopular or that would potentially step on the toes of some politician who was threatened by your research. Many things that are popularly supported have and will continue to be wrong, so you need a certain self assurance to fall back on. Preferably your self assurance is supported by logic and reason and not dogmatism—but this entails a fair amount of hard work and study and reflection—you can’t just rely on intuition.

What you think of others matters equally as much. Be a good person and be careful who you surround yourself with. Be descerning of different groups of people and their beliefs/values/culture. Being rejected by a group of bigots is a good thing, and you wouldn't want to be embraced by them to begin with. There are countless historical examples of individuals led astray by group-think, so don't be too concerned what multitudes think of you. It all depends on context, and wanting to be "rejection proof" might signal too much interest in one's reputation, although I'm not accusing you of that.

It's human nature to do what you said. Just keep being human. Bring back to others what they deserve.

Perspective.

Don't be a business person who lives to exploit workers and fuck over the world.

Don't be surprised when the moral code you live by that is founded entirely on the exploitation of others means the exploited need little reason to cheer on your downfall.

I generally don't care what people think about me. They're are obvious exceptions like my employer. If you have shitty views that affect others negatively, like being a homophobe, transphobe, or a hard right conservative, then you're going to justifiably get shit on and hated on. You can choose to not care what people think, but in the real world there are consequences. If you live a life of inclusion and empathy, then most of the work is done towards not caring what others think. Basically, don't be an asshole, and if you are, keep to yourself and don't run a business. Good people don't get "canceled".

Become a hermit and don't interact with people.

People are always going going to give you their opinions, but the best thing about opinions is that they hold no weight in reality, we give these opinions the weight to impact us.

Now, most of those people who were cancled over nothing or what would be minor in comparison to others, they have regained most of what they lost, look at Louis C K, he got cancled, but he's now back doing what he was doing before.

You'll never be able to avoid rejection or criticism unless you block yourself off from the world or only surround yourself people who think identical to you, but where's the fun in that?