Okay, maybe not. But they definitely knew how grueling someone’s words could be.

I never anticipated this prior to writing for The State News, and at times I wonder if I would reconsider filling out an application had I known this all along.

As a writer, the relationship you share with your audience can, at best, be described as a day-by-day romance. But even this once-special bond has been flipped on its head by the rapid transition into the digital world.

On the one hand, you love them.

After all, they read your writing — the primary goal of anyone who spends a portion of the day with their fingers glued to a keyboard.

Without them, your column or story might as well be a document on your computer or diary under your bed. Even if the content is good, or the message is something you think others should hear, your hard work becomes quieted if it is cut off from anyone else’s eyes but your own.

For this reason, you appreciate the group of unknown faces reading your work because you know they’re the ones who keep you honest, motivated and hungry to create something better each day.
But as great as these people are, they’re also terrifying.

I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t sink every time I checked one of my stories online and found a number other than zero next to the words “comments and reactions.”

As if writing the story wasn’t hard enough, the Internet has granted a branch of unknown faces an outlet to express their deepest dissatisfactions with the world.

Instead of using this medium for good, this branch of unknown faces — who once were unable to voice their thoughts — can make a day with no comments on your work feel like the greatest gift you can receive.

So, what can you do?

Unfortunately for writers, the answer to this question seems to be located in the one lesson teachers forget to teach in school.

But, in a way, this makes sense.

Sure, they can encourage you to follow your dreams, teach you a handful of tips that might come in handy in the future and point in the direction of people who might help you get your first big break. But how can they teach you the real thing you need to know?

How do you teach someone how to handle being disliked?

As someone who has tried to answer this question before and failed, the best advice I can give is you can’t.

No matter how thick your skin gets, feeling like you failed the one group of people you set out to impress is a feeling you never can fully shake. It’s a feeling that always stays with you in the back of your mind and eats at you when you’re feeling your worst.

It’s an uphill battle you will lose each time. And it sucks.

But as hard of a feeling as this is to swallow, this doesn’t mean you should be quick to forget about the people out there you never need to work to impress.

Instead of beating yourself up over the people who don’t like you, adopt a new mindset that celebrates the ones who do.

Tell yourself that, even on a perfect day, you’ll be lucky if you only piss off half the people you set out to impress. You’ll be lucky to find a good comment mixed in with the bad. And feel lucky to know that, for at least one person, your work made a difference.

Whether your passion is business, teaching, writing or anything else, let the way you handle this criticism be the thing that defines your career, not the criticism itself.

Just like in boxing, it’s not the number of blows you take in a fight that defines your career, but the way you responded once your back was against the ropes that separates the greats.

So whatever your passion might be, don’t let the pessimistic faces in your audience be the ones who shake you and hold you back.

Spend more time being grateful for the ones who appreciate you — the ones who keep you honest, motivated and hungry for the right reasons.

After all, I think we’re better off. We don’t have to hide behind a screen name.

Greg Olsen is a the opinion writer at The State News and a professional writing senior. Reach him at olsengr2@msu.edu.