Field Note #4: "Stop Arguing With Compliments" or "Why Accepting Compliments Feels so Hard".

The other day I called a taxi and my neighbour arrived. As it turned out, he was the taxi driver who had answered the call. When we got to where I was going, I reached for my purse and asked him how much I owed him.

"It's alright," he said. "Don't worry about it."

Now, this should have been a pleasant moment, a moment to make you smile and feel grateful. A simple act of kindness between two neighbours, nothing that dramatic. Instead, I immediately felt awkward.

`

"No, honestly..."

"It's fine."

"At least let me give you something. Do you want some art? I have lots of my prints!"

"No, it’s nothing, really! I insist."

It felt as if accepting his generosity without giving something back would somehow upset the natural order of the universe. It was as if I was taking advantage of him in some way. Logically, I knew he was offering because he wanted to. He wasn't trying to make me feel indebted or anything like that. He wasn't secretly expecting me to slip him a tenner when he looked away. He was simply doing something kind because he felt like it.

Yet my first instinct wasn't gratitude. It was discomfort. I kept thinking about it afterwards because I realised that many of us react to praise in exactly the same way.

Someone tells us we've done a great job. We reply with:

"Oh, it wasn't that difficult."

Someone says we're looking well. Our response is usually something like:

"I've had about three hours' sleep."

Someone tells us we're talented. We emphatically disagree:

"I've still got loads to learn."

It's as though compliments arrive gift-wrapped, and instead of opening them, we politely hand them back, which raises an interesting question: why? After all, if someone criticises us, many of us accept it immediately and nod along.

"You could have done that better."

Fair enough.

"You're too sensitive."

You are probably right; I should work on that.

"You're not good enough."

That one, we often believe immediately and carry around for years - even if we cry, even if we argue, even if we insist it isn't true. Somehow, deep down, we quietly adopt it as part of our true identity. Have you noticed how criticism often walks straight through the front door and makes itself at home? Praise, meanwhile, barely gets past the doormat - or becomes it.

Somewhere along the way, many of us become excellent at collecting evidence against ourselves while quietly dismissing anything that contradicts the case. Part of the reason is surprisingly simple: our brains aren't particularly interested in what's pleasant. They're interested in what's useful for survival.

From an evolutionary perspective, remembering the person who rejected you was probably far more important than remembering the person who complimented your haircut. Negative experiences tend to stick because they might protect us next time. Positive experiences often drift away unless we consciously pay attention to them.

But biology isn't the whole story - the rest is identity.

Imagine you've quietly carried the belief that you're not clever enough and then someone tells you you're very smart. Immediately you have two choices: either your belief changes...

...or the compliment is wrong. Most of us don't rewrite years of self-belief because of one sentence. We choose to simply reject the opposite of what we had made ourselves believe.

"Oh, they're just being nice."

"They don't really know me."

"They're exaggerating."

"They just want something from me."

The compliment isn't judged on its own merit, it's judged against the story we've already decided is true. So that's why accepting praise can feel strangely uncomfortable: not because praise is unpleasant, but because it clashes with our identity. And identities are stubborn bloody things.

What's fascinating is that rejecting praise doesn't protect us - it reinforces the very beliefs we're trying to escape! Rather inconvenient, really.

Every compliment we dismiss quietly tells our brain:

"See? That positive information wasn't true."

Eventually, the brain stops paying much attention to praise altogether. It doesn't bother keeping it. Criticism, however, gets framed, laminated and hung on the wall. Perhaps that's why some people can receive ten compliments and one criticism, yet go to bed thinking only about the one nasty thing someone said. The brain isn't being objective; it's simply following the map it already has.

The good news is that maps can be redrawn. No, not overnight. And usually not by standing in front of a mirror chanting affirmations you don't believe… But by gradually allowing reality to challenge old assumptions. The next time someone gives you a genuine compliment, try a small experiment.

Don't explain it away. Don't minimise it. Don't immediately return a compliment just to restore balance. Don't argue. Simply say:

"Thank you."

And then allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of believing that they might actually mean it. In a strange way, rejecting every compliment isn't humility. It's quietly assuming the other person is wrong about their own experience. They aren't necessarily trying to flatter you because they want something. They aren't necessarily manipulating you. And no, not everyone who compliments you wants to have sex with you.

Just let it sink in. Because sometimes the hardest emotional skill isn't learning how to survive criticism - it's allowing your identity to become just a little more accurate.