Different perspective: The cost of being wrong is overstated. The cost of offending someone is overstated. Being told you&#x27;re wrong isn&#x27;t the worst thing in the world. Being told you&#x27;ve said something offensive won&#x27;t set you on fire.<p>I used to be afraid of being told I was wrong or offensive. I took it personally. Now I try to shrug it off and take it as legitimate feedback that doesn&#x27;t compromise my self-esteem or integrity. Being told you&#x27;re wrong is better than being wrong and never told you&#x27;re wrong. Being told you&#x27;re offensive is enormously better than never being told who you&#x27;re putting off with your behavior. This holds <i>even when you take into account the unjustified negative feedback</i>.<p>I try to avoid thinking less of someone for thinking I was wrong, or being offended by what I&#x27;ve done. If I do that, I&#x27;m distorting my social reality: I am penalizing people for telling me negative things. I am penalizing people for caring that I&#x27;m wrong. I&#x27;m penalizing people for telling me that my behavior hurts them. By protecting my ego, I would be hurting my relationships with my peers and social groups.<p>This is not to say I&#x27;m not emotional about the responses I receive. I am quite emotional. If I&#x27;m writing in a dry tone, I probably just woke up and don&#x27;t have access to all my senses yet. In fact I think writing without emotional color is a form of defensiveness: It is yet another way for a writer to hedge and separate themself from their opinion and their reader. I&#x27;d rather be close to my words and my listeners than safe from criticism.