I'm trying to break this habit but it's fucking hard.

I hate to break it to all of you, but if everyone* thinks you’re a good person, you’re probably a good person.

*in b4 someone names a famously charitable monster: everyone didn’t think Jimmy Saville or Bill Cosby, for example, were good people, to be clear. There were quite a lot of victims who thought otherwise. Also they were much more concerned with whether people perceived them to be good people than whether they were good people, so you’re also clear on that point if you identify with this.

I heard a good argument that caused me to suppress this instinct. When you argue against a compliment, you are forcing additional emotional labor onto the person paying it to you. Either they have to double down and say, "No, I really mean it" until you finally stop protesting, or they have to just awkwardly disengage from the conversation by not pressing the matter, making them regret the effort in the first place.

Quit being dramatic and just say thank you, for god's sake.

Oh, I do even better. I will purposefully act to prove that compliment wrong.