My first job after college was writing sports for a newspaper in the Mojave Desert. Because I was the new guy in the department, I was tasked with authoring brief, two-sentence snippets about Little League Baseball games played in our coverage area each night. In the sports journalism world, this chore is the equivalent of hazing freshmen fraternity pledges by dunking their heads in the toilet or making them run naked through the quad. The Little League beat necessarily means fielding phone calls from irate Little League parents who believe their sons were slighted—if not completely disrespected—because their bunt single or bases-loaded walk wasn’t mentioned in a snippet.

“You call yourself a journalist?!” they’d bark. “I’m canceling my subscription to this rag!”

I was 24 years old at the time, and I’ll cop to the fact that these phone called got to me. I was sensitive. I wanted to make my editors happy, and this wasn’t quite what I’d pictured when I dreamed of being a journalist. But in the 15 years since that time, I’ve learned to be grateful for that chore. It helped me develop a thick skin and a measure of perspective. If you put pieces of yourself out there on display—which so many of us do—you must prepare yourself for the inevitability of criticism and, in some cases, personal attack.

That training came in handy a couple of times yesterday.

What I dislike about thick skin is the plain truth that it’s a defense mechanism, and sometimes defense isn’t the appropriate posture. Yes, it’s helpful to be able to deflect the incoming barbs and attacks, but conflicts are a lot easier (and more interesting) to manage when you’re able to throw some punches of your own. But I dare not.

Be the bigger person. Take the high road. Turn the other cheek.

I try.

But lately what I find the hardest posture of all is restraint—and perhaps that’s a sign that my skin isn’t as thick as I thought it was.

People take shots. They just do. And sometimes it feels like shooting back would make it all go away. It’s like an open invitation to stand on top of the table, pound your chest, assert your dominance. But that never ends well. It’s no different than burying hurt feelings under drugs or booze or a half-gallon of rocky road.

Be the bigger person. Take the high road. Turn the other cheek.

I have taken a step back this morning, looked at the bigger picture, and reminded myself that restraint is almost always the smart choice. Not as exciting, nor as fulfilling, but almost always smarter.

My daughter made me sit with her this weekend while she watched the next in a never-ending series of Disney Channel movies designed to make little girls squeal with delight and then blink their sweet little eyelashes at their daddies as they say softly, “Daddy, can we go buy me a tiara?”

But the most recent salvo of cinematic brilliance comes with a twist. Since it was about princesses real and imagined, the fine folks at Disney decided to keep track of every time the words “princess” or “princesa” or “princesita” was spoken by one of the actors. Naturally, my child was elated by this trick. Every time a variation of the P-word popped onto the screen, she shouted it out with glee.

“Daddy! Princesses!”

“Woohoooo!” I lied.

Indeed, my daughter has recently become quite focused upon making herself look like a princess; no more of the youngster who thought leopard-print blouses work well with navy, polka-dotted skirts. She now wears dresses and strappy shoes and little things that make her blondish-brown hair lay certain ways on her tiny little head. I find this to be sweet and endearing, if perhaps a little ridiculous.

What I do NOT find endearing is that, taking a cue from her mother, my six-year-old daughter is concerned with MY attire.

Hot Wife recently bought me two shirts. She announced when she presented them to me that they were to be worn during my upcoming book tour. (Apparently the ragged, torn, weathered t-shirts I’ve been wearing lately do not fit my beloved’s idea of style or grace.) Fine, I thought. I’ll wear them.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my daughter heard this exchange. That’s bad. At age six, she’s still stuck in that mode where every overheard word or conversation is something to mimic and, in her case, take too far. For her, the contrast of HER looking like a princess and MY looking like a schlemiel is a perfect breeding ground for…um…whatever you call this:

“Daddy-uh, you’re not going to wear that wrinkled shirt when you talk about Rajuhginzamish’gna, are you?”

“No, honey,” I said. “I’m going to wear the new shirts mommy bought for me.”

“Good-uh,” she said. “We can’t have you looking all sloppy.”

“No. Certainly not. Thank you for your concern, princess.”

“You’re welcome, daddy.”

“Wait,” I said. “What’s the book called again?”

“Rajuhginzamish’gna.”

"Exactly."