How does your culture handle insults? How about you? When I worked at GE we had an expression for handling insults: "grow feathers." When I first asked what does that mean, it was explained "handle insults like water off a duck's behind. If you're too sensitive, grow more feathers..." I did struggle with that at first. Someone people will come right at you with an insult. How we take that thought is completely up to us. We really can grow more feathers. The advantage is, if people see that they can't upset you, they may stop trying so hard to upset you, and start actually communicating. No matter what they say at first... It's only an insult if you take it personally. And, since it probably has much more to do with how they feel about themselves and what's going on in their own lives, it's better not to take it personally at all. -- doug smith