Can we become unoffendable ?
Do we gain anything and is it even possible ?
One of my colleagues recently told me her weird resolution for this year, she wants to become completely unoffendable.
I didnt quite understand it correctly, so i asked more to understand, she repeats, ‘Not difficult to offend’ , ‘not managing my reactions’, rather completely, becoming incapable of taking offense.
At first it sounded like wisdom, like the Simon Sinek or the Jay shetty instagram kind of stoic ‘high chair’ wisdom. Then it also sounded like numbness.
I keep rotating it in my mind, looking at it from different angles, and I can’t settle on whether it’s the sanest idea I’ve heard in years or a quiet form of self-erasure.
What playing around AI tools has helped me is to look at any thing from different angles and keep reverifying it. I look from this angle, then that and then first principle, second order, inversion, etc etc.
Let’s start with what makes the idea so appealing right now.
We’re exhausted, completely drained. The outrage engine runs the entire day. Everyone is offended by something. Political, cultural, personal, just something. You go to any social media platform or a tv channel, feels like someone is always offended by something.
Against that backdrop, the person who just can’t be offended? She looks like the only adult in the room. They have something the rest of us don’t: peace.
Now I know that being offended gives other people power over you.
Your coworker makes a sharp comment, and now your afternoon is ruined. A stranger on the internet criticizes something you made, and you’re not able to sleep at night ( or a famous comedian in India, Samay recently said, ‘you keep thinking about it in the shower’)
Someone cuts you off in traffic and you carry the anger for an hour.
Every offense is a transfer of control. They did something; now you’re feeling something. If you could become unoffendable, you’d be taking that power back. No one could hijack your internal state without your permission.
That’s not a small thing.
That might be freedom.
But I needed to look at it 360 degree, from all the possible angles available to me.
Offense isn’t just weakness. It’s also a signal, like pain is a signal of wound.
Pain tells you something is wrong — that you’ve touched a hot stove, that something in you needs attention. Offense works similarly. It tells you a boundary you created in your mind has been crossed. That something you valued has been disrespected. That an injustice is happening, with you.
Imagine if you couldn’t feel any pain, like imagine if you put your hand on the stove turned on and you don’t feel anything, forget offence, you have a bigger medical problem to deal with, a possible heart or brain stroke ?
What if offense works the same way?
What if the goal isn’t to eliminate it but to understand what it’s telling you?
The person who’s never offended by anything might not be enlightened.
They might just be numb.
Or so defended that nothing can reach them anymore — including things that should.
Or the barriers are just too low ?
Okay, its clearly not as simple, atleast to me. Lets look at it from what it could mean while dealing with different people.
With strangers:
I think this is where unoffendability makes the most sense.
The person who cuts you off in traffic doesn’t know you. The internet troll criticizing your work has never met you, or doesn’t matter to you. The rude cashier is having their own bad day that has nothing to do with you.
Taking offense here is almost always a mistake. You’re giving emotional real estate to someone who hasn’t earned it. You’re letting randomness ruin your equilibrium.
With strangers, the unoffendable stance seems clearly wise. Their opinion of you is none of your business. Their behavior is about them, not you. Let it pass through you like wind.
This part, I think, is logical (if not achievable).
At work:
Here it gets more nuanced.
There’s a lot at work that isn’t worth being offended by. Office politics. Petty comments. The email that was slightly curt. The meeting where you got interrupted. The credit that went to someone else.
If you took offense at all of this, you’d be perpetually wounded. The person who can shrug this off, who can focus on the work and not the slights, has a real advantage. They’re not burning energy on grievances. They’re not accumulating enemies. They move through the political landscape without getting stuck.
But.
What about the boss who consistently undermines you? The colleague who takes credit for your work repeatedly? The systemic unfairness that affects your career? The harassment that’s disguised as “just how things are”?
If you can’t be offended by these, are you wise or are you complicit? Are you at peace or are you being walked over?
There’s a difference between not sweating the small stuff and not recognizing when something is genuinely wrong. The trick is knowing which is which. And I’m not sure “become completely unoffendable” helps you make that distinction.
Ultimately you are working for an incentive and unoffendability at the wrong place, just keeps you getting farther from it.
In relationships:
I think this is where it is dangerous.
Your partner says something that hurts you. Your friend cancels on you for the third time. Your parent compares you with your cousin.
The unoffendable response would be: let it go. Don’t take it personally. They’re fighting their own battles. Your peace doesn’t depend on their behavior.
And sometimes that’s right. Relationships require tolerance for imperfection. If you’re offended by every small friction, you’ll be at war with everyone you love everytime.
But sometimes offense is the correct response. Sometimes “that hurt me” is the only honest thing you can say. Sometimes your boundaries need defending. Sometimes the relationship needs the friction of honesty, not the smoothness of indifference.
The person who can never be offended by their partner might not be evolved. They might be abandoning themselves. They might have given up on being truly known.
Intimacy requires vulnerability. Vulnerability means some things can wound you. If nothing can wound you, are you still showing up fully?
With yourself:
I never thought I would reach here.
Can you be unoffendable toward yourself?
The tongue slip you had, the opportunity you missed because you were lazy. The time you wasted. The ways you’ve fallen short of who you thought you’d be.
Most of us are more offended by ourselves than by anyone else. The inner critic is vicious in ways we’d never tolerate from a stranger. We carry offenses against ourselves for decades, I have carried it for long enough.
Maybe this is where unoffendability would be most valuable. Not toward others, but toward yourself. The ability to witness your own failures without taking them as evidence of your worthlessness. To see your flaws clearly without being crushed by them.
But even here, there’s a fine line to consider. Self-offense can clearly be destructive. It can also be a signal.
The shame you feel about something might be telling you it matters to you. That you violated your own values. That something needs repair.
Complete self-unoffendability should look like self-acceptance. But it might also be sociopathy
Now,
I’m skeptical.
Not because emotional regulation isn’t a skill. It is. But because the project of becoming “completely unoffendable” might be aiming at the wrong target.
Offense isn’t a bug in the human operating system. It’s a feature. It evolved because it served a purpose — signaling threats to our status, our bonds, our values. You can’t just decide to delete it.
What you can do is develop a better relationship with it.
You can notice when you’re offended and think: is this signal useful? What is the ultimate incentive ?
Is something genuinely wrong, or is this just my ego? Does this deserve my energy, or am I being hijacked?
That’s being discerning about offense. Letting some pass. Attending to others. Using it as information rather than being controlled by it.
Who gets to be unoffendable?
It’s easier to be unoffendable when you’re secure. When your status isn’t under constant threat. When the slights you receive are occasional, not systematic.
The person with power and safety can afford to shrug things off. What’s one rude comment to someone whose position is assured?
But the person whose dignity is questioned daily? The person who faces microaggressions as a constant daily routine ? The person who has to decide, every single time, whether to let it go or push back?
Telling them to become unoffendable might not be wisdom. It might be asking them to accept conditions that shouldn’t be accepted in a normal civilised world.
Unoffendability could be a privilege.
So where does this leave me?
I don’t think my friend’s resolution is wrong. I think it’s incomplete.
Becoming unoffendable to things that don’t matter? That seems genuinely wise. Strangers. Small slights.
But becoming completely unoffendable seems like being pushed back from what you are actually trying to max on. Self love, a strong relationship, being seen or just being understood and accepted.
Maybe the goal isn’t unoffendability. Maybe it’s something more precise.
The ability to choose when to be offended. To feel the signal, examine it, and decide whether to act on it or let it pass.
Enjoy this video on how Enzo Ferrari took offence and ended up creating Lamborghini. Not to mention, how much mental distress he must have gone through