Why Do We Feel Like We Have To Defend Ourselves?

So, this post started out on my views on Sara J Maas and her books. In case you don't know, she wrote the Throne of Glass Series and the A Court of Thorns and Roses Series.

You can basically sort people who have read these books into three groups:

1. People who LOVE, LOVE, LOVE them and will fight you over their ships

2. People who hate it (For many reasons including being full of adult content, but being listed as a YA, and the slightly crazy/violent fans.)

3. And the people like me, who have read it and enjoyed reading it, and will probably finish the series, but it isn't our #1 Favorite Book EVER and we understand if you are didn't like them and won't give you death threats.)

Anyhow, this blog post started off, basically as me defending my views on her books, and apologizing for the annoying fans.

But you know what?

Why?

Why do I feel like I have to defend myself on my views? Why can't I just believe what I do and just...not care what people think?

Why do we allow ourselves to get all worked up over other people's opinions?

I mean, I'm not saying that we're supposed to not care at all what other people think.
And I really enjoy people challenging my views.


Ok, not actually. It annoys me and makes me all depressed and off balance, but I recognize that the challenging of my view points is important, because it makes me re-evaluate my views and think about why I have those views.

What I'm sloppily trying to say here, is

Why do we always have to explain ourselves?

About our view points.

Or our feelings.

Why can't we just say, "I enjoyed TOG" without getting jumped? Why can't we say we didn't like it without getting harassed?

And before we start with the whole "Yes, people pick on me too." Let's all remember, don't we all have that one series? That one series where we'll be talking to somebody and you think their awesome and they like some of the same books as you and then they say something like,

"Yeah. I love Twilight.*"

And you start looking for an exit.

(If you don't do this, then thank you for being an awesome person.)

So:

Let's learn
1.) That we don't have to defend our choices or view points. It's ok to say you like ..whatever it is you like. It's ok to say No. And it's ok to say no and not explain yourself.

2.) If you don't like it, don't do it to other people.




*This is just an example.



Comments

  1. Amen to that, Mary Kate!

    Though I will admit that I do it too - mostly with people that like really trashy bad books.

    Catherine
    catherinesrebellingmuse.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is awesome! I'm a die-hard Harry Potter fan and a hater of Twilight, but one of my closest friends LOVES Twilight! That's actually how we met, we had this huge debate where we agreed to disagree, and then I brought up the Red Queen and we both happened to love that series, so we fangirled over that!! xD

    ReplyDelete
  3. This was a very interesting post!
    bethanyr4Him.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment