Facing Critics and Naysayers

I was trying to encourage a fellow writer today who was feeling down because of mean-spirited Amazon customer reviewers. We’ve all read a few doozies that made us shake our heads, haven’t we? The struggle is not unique to writers, as Stephen King states. It applies to just about anything you do publicly, or that becomes public knowledge. We will always have detractors, critics, and naysayers. It’s a sign that you’re doing something that matters.

Anyway, I came upon some sage advice from some fairly well-known writers on the topic:

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Four Things My Dog Taught Me about Healthy Relationships

“Be the person your dog thinks you are.”
Have you ever heard that phrase before? We laugh sometimes at how naïve, and utterly devoted our quadruped friends can be while at the same, we time nod in unspoken acknowledgement when we see characters like Dug in the movie “UP.” Dug is best known for his line: “I have just met you, and I love you.”

My dog is probably like most in the same way, but upon careful observation of his interation with me and my family, I learned a few things from him that made me wonder—What if people could be like this to each other?

Here are the four things I learned:

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