Criticism.
Just the sound of that word makes me cringe.
Even though we receive it so often in our lives, we still find it hard to accept it sometimes. We love to paint pretty pictures of ourselves so much that we end up opposing to factors that forces us out of our comfort zone. When I was 15, I was very active in Girl Guides. I was very passionate of the movement and proud of everything I did for it. One of our projects that year was to design n our own t-shirt. I showed my good friend, Mandy, a prospective design. And she said, “The colour combination is all wrong. Yellow and grey? It’s so dull. What’s that right there? An emblem? I thought it was a dead mosquito! Who designed this anyway? I think my three year old nephew, who can barely draw, can do so much better.” “Uhm… I did, I designed it.”
“Oh you did? Well it’s nice, it’s nice, I like it….”
We can give so many comments about how she was probably being a little too blunt on me, a little too harsh. But let’s not concentrate on how or why or what she said. Instead, let’s concentrate on why she took her words back.
Maybe she did it because she was embarrassed, or maybe she thought she was making me feel embarrassed. But at that moment, six years ago, I knew exactly why she took them back. It was because she was absolutely certain that I, under any circumstances, could not accept criticism directed at myself.
In our culture, we are expected to be nice to others, to please others, that sometimes we go overboard and avoid being frank just to take care of others’ feelings. Even though these are good deeds at a glance, this attiitude has created an atmosphere of superficiality. As a result, avoiding being honest about anything has become the norm, an expected thing, an everyday occurrence. This is the prevalent attitude of some of the critics that we have today.
But can we blame them? Can we blame the critics for not being entirely honest when they criticise? No, because sometimes the critics hold back their real opinions because the person they criticise will not be able to accept the truth about themselves. As in the case of Mandy and I. So whats this? Critics not giving their all because of the recepient’s inadequacy? Isn’t that odd? Shouldn’t things change? because if this pattern continues, the other party would go on making mistakes again and again just because nobody would have the courage to step up and say it’s wrong.
So if we want to be be better at anything at all, our attitude towards criticism must change. We should be more open towards criticism, more receptive to it. Criticism should be something that we yearn for, something we can’t live without, something we can’t get enough of, simply because of the assurance that criticism doesn’t drag us down. No, on the contrary, it elevates us because it helps us become better people. So ladies and gentlemen, let us allow our critics to have a little bit of Mandy’s honesty, without the harshness of course.
