Enemy: A person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.
Enemies are a part of life. I always do my best to be super nice to everyone I meet. But even if you’re nice, you will encounter someone at each stage of your career who has an issue with you or even hates you. For no reason! You didn’t do anything! They hate you anyway.
I never like to even touch on this story because I generally say ‘no’ to negativity, but I’ll keep it short. Once upon a time I had a blogging colleague. We were friendly at first, but the moment she sensed a bit of competition, she went for the jugular. After a fashion week misunderstanding, she decided to go to all lengths to try to destroy my name and brand, even going so far as to send mass e-mails out to PR firms, bloggers, advertisers and anyone who would listen (!) lying about me and painting me as this terrible person. She tweeted about me, wrote veiled blog posts about me. This girl was a blog bully.
Someone crazy enough to send mass e-mails talking smack about someone else is seriously off their rocker, no? So even though I wanted to reach out to people, retaliate against her, and defend myself, I kept quiet. I prayed on it. I continued to be nice to her and even said hi when I saw her.
When I’d reach out for invites to shows, I’d get completely denied season after season (largely due to her–her site was bigger and she had better relationships with PR firms). I swallowed my pride, cried on the inside, and just kept doing ME. I poured myself into Fashion Bomb Daily, did the most with the resources I had, and continued to rise and shine.
It would IRK ME to see her still doing well, taking pictures with designers, and going from show to high wattage show during fashion week. I kept my head down and stayed working.
And then one day, she announced she was closing down her site. Just like that, she was gone.
Guess who’s still around (by the Grace of GOD, hallelujah)?
GOD don’t like ugly, and Karma is a b*tch. And if homegirl was crazy to me, I’m sure she did crazy things to try to ruin other people (I’ve actually seen her work, she is the master of the nasty mass e-mail).
All that to say, sometimes enemies defeat themselves.
I took a very Gandhi/Martin Luther King approach to the situation and turned the other cheek, smiled through my pain, took the blows on the chin, and stayed positive even in the midst of negativity.
I learned a lot about people i.e. why would they believe what she’s saying when my work speaks for itself? Have they not seen my resumé? But no matter. At the time she was ‘bigger’ and more popular than me, so they took her word for it. Welcome to the fashion industry (don’t bet your life on loyalty in this field of work, but that’s another post for another time).
An enemy might try to bring you down, but you won’t stay down for long.
An enemy might try to destroy what you created, but they aren’t that powerful. Push forward.
While they’re obsessed with ruining you, they’re not working to improve their own situation, and they’ll ultimately ruin themselves.
And if you pay them no mind, and keep doing what you’re supposed to do, you will WIN.
I haven’t won YET, I still have a ways to go and millions to collect (hello!).
But if there’s anyone negative in your life, pray for them, kill them with kindness, and keep on doing YOU. The cream will rise to the top eventually. It always does.
Love + Light!
