Learning how to deal with people and their reactions to my life

In the days of old, elders taught that a person is not tested only by storms and swords, but by the eyes and tongues of the crowd. Bethany Hamilton’s words—about learning to deal with people and their reactions to her life—speak to that quiet battlefield where no trumpet sounds. She tells us that the most arduous climbs are not always cliffs or waves, but the ascent of the heart when staring grows heavy, when rude questions pierce like thorns, and when the media churns a life into spectacle. This is the discipline of endurance in full daylight, the courage to be seen and to remain oneself.

The origin of such a saying is not theory but ordeal. Hamilton, known for returning to the sea after losing her arm to a shark, discovered that physical pain and the re-learning of balance were only part of her path. The larger mountain was the human tide: the curious, the cruel, the well-meaning but clumsy. To deal with people—to navigate reactions that range from awe to intrusion—is to acquire a second mastery alongside surfing’s poise: the mastery of presence, boundaries, truth, and patience. It is, as she says, among the most challenging things.

This lesson is old as the first marketplace. Consider the tale of the philosopher Diogenes, who chose a simple life in a barrel and invited the city’s staring. Crowds mocked; officials posed questions meant to corner him; the earliest media—town gossip—reframed his life as scandal. Yet he practiced an art of response: some questions he answered with riddles, some he ignored, and some he rebuked with a single sentence. He was learning what to reveal and what to reserve, when to stand firm, and when to step aside. Like Hamilton, he discovered that liberty requires strategies against the gaze.

But where cynic austerity is one route, there is also the path of grace. A more tender story comes from the Japanese concept of “honne and tatemae”—the inner truth and the public face. The wise do not surrender their life to the reactions of others, yet they understand that human beings meet each other through appearances first. Thus they craft a “tatemae” that is honest but measured, a shield that lets one’s inner “honne” breathe. Hamilton’s practice—choosing which rude questions to educate, which to decline, and when to give herself quiet—resembles this art: a humane geometry of distance and closeness.

There is also the discipline of translation: suffering must be taught to speak. When the media arrives, it will tell your story with its own hunger unless you give it a backbone of meaning. Hamilton’s interviews and public life became, over time, a kind of liturgy: not an exploitation of pain but a naming of resilience, faith, and craft. Here the ancient counsel holds: if you do not define your ordeal, your ordeal will define you. To deal with people is not to appease them, but to give the truth a shape strong enough to hold.

From these strands we weave a simple law: mastery is double. One must learn the external art—the board, the stroke, the craft—and the internal art—the boundary, the breath, the reply. To accept staring without shrinking, to meet rude questions without rancor, to engage media without losing the marrow of identity—this is the hidden curriculum of heroism. It is not loud, but it lasts.

The lesson for us is clear: cultivate a rule of life for the crowd. First, set your boundaries in advance; decide what parts of your life are sacred and non-negotiable. Second, rehearse responses: keep a short script for common intrusions—one version for education, one for redirection, one for refusal. Third, practice the pause: when the heat rises, breathe, name your feeling silently, then act. Fourth, choose your medium before the media chooses you—tell your story where you can speak fully and be misquoted less. Fifth, restore yourself: after public exposure, return to a place and practice that makes you whole—water, prayer, craft, or silence.

Walk this path and you will be, like Hamilton, a steward of your own narrative. You will be learning always, yet never letting the world steal the helm. And when the reactions surge, you will stand like a lighthouse: not to fight every wave, but to remain visible, useful, and true.