Did he accomplish what he wanted?

The post:

What Martin Goldsmith was trying to do was to find a way to teach this person a lesson. He wanted to teach her that what she was doing was wrong and hurtful and to get her to stop, and to see the error of her ways.

I acknowledge that Martin was definitely being hurt here. He does not deserve what was happening to him. That needed be stopped, definitely. That should have been his only goal, and that could have been accomplished very simply in a non-hurtful way. Ignoring her completely would have worked fine (she would not have commented beyond her first post, if he hadn't have responded to her, I would bet), or, if not, then a very simple statement saying that he found her comments to be uncomfortable, and he would like to ask her to please stop. Respectful and causes no harm.

But Martin Goldsmith did not limit himself to the easily-accomplished goal of getting her to stop. He took the opportunity to set himself up as a teacher, to try to get her to change, to become better. This was a movement of his ego, and this caused the problem.

Martin's goal was to get her to break free from her spiritual bypassing. Martin tried to get her to see what she was doing was wrong, to get her to grow, to improve, to become better, to become more sensitive and compassionate to others, to become more empathetic to others. Obviously, he didn't. He failed to break her of her spiritual bypassing, he failed to get her to see what she was doing was wrong, he failed to get her to grow, to improve, to become better, to become more sensitive and compassionate to others, to become more empathetic to others. He did not accomplish any of this. He did not come anywhere close. He botched it completely.

Martin Goldsmith's goal should have been to get her to stop saying hurtful comments, and this goal could have very easily been accomplished (ignoring her is the first and best method, very simply asking her to stop is an excellent second place method). Instead, Martin took on a much grander project of being a teacher to her, to demonstrate to her her bad behavior, and try to get her to become better. It is this move of Martin's ego that tripped him up, and why this interaction is the sad, depressing encounter it is.