A counterintuitive snippet of wisdom, from the series The Crown:

“You have no enemies, you say? Alas, my friend, the boast is poor. He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure, must have made foes. If you have none, small is the work that you have done. You’ve hit no traitor on the hip. You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip. You’ve never turned the wrong to right. You’ve been a coward in the fight.” - Charles MacKay

Darn, I want to have more enemies now. Especially if it meant that I had to do the right thing—the upright thing—that no one wants to do, that most hate to do. Because having enemies this way meant a few good things:

• You had put yourself out there so openly and publicly, which meant it took courage.
• You did what everyone else didn’t or hated to do, even if it was right, which meant you had integrity to your own values and followed it through, despite being counter to others.
• If you had many enemies due to it, your work was by no means small and insignificant.

I like that. I like how it turns on the head that one should always try to be polite and likeable. Of course one still can be so even while doing enemy-creating work. It’s not all or nothing. 

Perhaps the term “enemies” might feel quite serious. You have enemies in war, but not in peacetime surely? Perhaps then we can replace it with “critiques” or “trolls”. Just like the famous Zen haiku “If a tree falls in the forest and no one sees it, did it fall?”, if no one bothers to troll or criticise your work, did it really matter? So while building in public, if it brings you criticism, embrace it. Take the good ones not as affirmation of your ego or to satisfy your need for approval, but as third-party pointers to ponder upon. Take the idiotic ones as confirmation that you work mattered, and bother not with the actual words. 

Silently thank your enemies. They are after all, providing valuable insight into your work.