The Substack Conundrum
A Dramatised Story used to explain how most of us over-react to Negative Comments
John sat on the edge of his bed, staring at his phone. In his Substack inbox where 47 likes praising his recent published article were sitting. The warm compliments, polite comments and nods of his subscribers and genuine appreciation made John feel good.
But sitting quietly at the bottom of the list of comments however, was a single message from a senior Substacker: “This lacks vigour and is a very Disappointing effort.”
That single Negative Comment shouted out A LOT LOUDER THAN THE 47 OTHER POSITIVE COMMENTS COMBINED. It felt like the BAD, LOUD MOUTHED DRUNK AT A WEDDING—crashing through the room, knocking over furniture and drinks, and demanding everyone’s FOCUS and ATTENTION, while the quiet, 47 supportive guests were forced into the corner. John felt his heart rate spike, his chest tighten, and a surge of defensiveness rise up.
The fear was immediate: “Am I going to succeed in this writing lark? Am I a fraud? Am I good enough? Shall I quit writing altogether?” His mind latched onto this single Negative line, staring directly at it with LAZER FOCUSED EYES ignoring not only the other 47 positive comments but every good thing he’d wrote and accomplished that week on Substack!
Then, John remembered something he’d written recently on Substack about how the brain processes fear—the distinction between FULL ATTENTION and casual awareness.
He closed his eyes and thought about the human eye. When you stare directly at something especially FEAR OR BAD NEWS your main field of vision locks on to it, MAGNIFYING every detail. But all around that tight focus lies the peripheral vision: objects, shapes, and movement that you notice without fixating on them. The mind works the exact same way, it tends to focus on the things that HURT you the MOST.
His brain’s survival instinct was treating this comment as a physical threat, ringing alarm bells and pulling him into SURVIVAL MODE because FEAR DEMANDS OUR BRAIN’S FULL ATTENTION for its very own survival. The positivity was lacking and quiet, but that IMMEDIATE THREAT OF DANGER was LOUD. Positivity took no space in his survival instincts, so it was easily pushed out and ignored.
John took a deep breath and decided to try a new approach, even though every instinct urged him to obsess over the bad news.
He opened a blank document on his screen and typed a single, tiny plus sign: {+}.
Beneath it, he wrote out one Positive Comment from one of his subscribers: “Great work and very interesting article John.”
It felt insignificant compared to the ROAR of that one single bad comment although he knew there were 46 others Positive comments like it, which were equally insignificant. It did not matter to John! All of them felt quiet, almost useless. But John forced his main vision—his deliberate attention—to anchor onto that small dot of positivity. As for the harsh comment? He didn’t try to suppress it or pretend it didn’t exist. He simply moved it to his mind’s peripheral view—acknowledging it was there like a background noise, but refusing to stare directly at it, and ignoring the IMPACT it had on him.
It required an enormous amount of willpower off John. The bad comment kept trying to grab the microphone, shouting for his focus. His brain, wired for quick fixes, wanted to give up after five minutes. “This isn’t working” a voice whispered. “You need something stronger to numb this anxiety right now”. John knew if he just observed these Negative Thoughts they had no chance in capturing him and taking him off into a worrying scenario of failure and not good enough stories about himself, so he just let them come and then released them. Treating ‘THEM’ as insignificant.
So John just stayed the course. He reminded himself that practicing Acceptance wasn’t an immediate fix; his brain needed time to adjust its wiring to a new approach.
Hours passed. Every time a wave of self-doubt or verbal harshness tried to hijack his thoughts, John shifted his full attention back to the small positive wins, letting the Negative Chatter sit quietly on the margins of his awareness.
Slowly, the shift began. The 47 quiet positive voices, nurtured by his casual attention, started to build momentum. They grew clearer, stronger, larger and gradually LOUDER. The Negative thoughts didn’t vanish entirely, but they lost their power—relegated to background noise that no longer dictated his mood or actions.
Then opposite happened, everything changed around for John, the 47 positive comments became more significant than that one Negative comment.
By choosing what he PAID ATTENTION TO, John realised he was finally choosing what became his life.
THE END
There is a moral to this story, in the way Negative bad news can affect you and can frame those concepts of failure and rejection and how bad news can SHOUT OUT a lot louder than good news ever can, because good news has very little impact on you compared to the loudness of BAD NEWS.
Using the visual analogy of direct focus on fear versus peripheral awareness to explain how the mind handles fear of being useless and rejected can be overwhelming to any individual if you over-react to it.
To practice Acceptance is genuinely profound. It makes a complex mental shift feel tangible and practical but it doesn’t work straight away. The strength of only one Negative and hurtful remark compared to 47 Positive comments can still feel overwhelming because the mind has this ability to single out the fear and threat that it feels of being Victimised or Persecuted. The brain has to survive, that’s why it goes into survival mode.
What you pay attention to, becomes your life, because FEAR hits you a lot harder than peace does, this is always going to be the case. Because the brain’s defensive mechanisms get turned on. It is our default mode. So we have to form some kind of coping strategies to help us overcome the natural reaction we ALL have when we are faced with fear. This is where Acceptance comes into action.
Until we start practicing Acceptance on a daily basis we are always going to follow down the path of our fear responses.
This is my job HERE on Substack to try my best to get the word out there to “Accept and change the way you are thinking” to become at peace with yourself and how you react to Negativity and Fear.
To learn MORE on how Acceptance Works, Click HERE
Yes, one negative statement about us can soil all the many positive statements we also received. But as you have stated, we need to manage these situations because it’s part of life. We cannot control the feelings of likes and dislikes others will express about us. But we can control how we react.
The distinction you draw between direct vision and peripheral awareness is brilliant. We so often try to force ourselves to stop thinking about a negative comment, which only makes us fixate on it. Placing it in the 'peripherals'—allowing it to exist without giving it center stage—is the truest definition of acceptance. Beautifully explained.