Criticism - Love It or Hate It?

As a child I hated hearing negativity at every turn. We were never good enough, we didn’t try hard enough in sports, we didn’t study hard enough in school, the neighbors were morons, his coworkers were ignorant and society sucked.

While still a teen, in an act of rebellion, I began reading and listening to a wide variety of self-help and motivational gurus like Zig Ziglar, Ken Blanchard and Dale Carnegie. For years my personal motto was “PMA all the way” (Positive mental attitude).

Having PMA, I learned, is pretty easy when life is simple. If your only responsibility is yourself, your expenses low and your income sufficient to afford a little fun there may not be much to bring you down.

As life progresses and becomes more complicated we find more and more reasons to be critical.

Professionally we take on more responsibility, we have more people dependent upon us and/or we depend more on others. The more our lives become intertwined with others the more situations arise that inconvenience us.

Personally our lives also grow. We get married, we have kids and become more engaged in our communities. The more we interact with others, again, the more we expose ourselves to criticism and being critical of others.

In most cases, criticism is seen as a bad thing. We are impatient, lack empathy or understanding of others. We are in bad moods and sensitive to comments or perceptions that others have of us.

But what if we look a little deeper at the criticism we hear? What if we didn’t take criticism as a personal attack? Could we find something positive in the criticism we receive?

Like virtually everyone, Jill can be critical as well. She doesn’t like how crispy I cook bacon, she comments about how much time I spend working on my hobbies or the computer, she bitches about the crap I leave on the dining room table and she questions my critical nature.

In the heat of the moment, I often get defensive and sometimes even pissed off. After-all it is not like she always cooks things perfectly and she leaves her own share of clutter throughout the house.

But taking a step back for a moment, thinking about criticism with a fresh perspective, how she cooks chicken cacciatore has nothing to do with how I cook bacon.

If my bacon sucks, it sucks. We are imperfect animals but often unwilling to admit this. We shun criticism and project the perception that we are perfect. In doing so we never take the opportunity presented to us to learn from the criticism and to improve.

The odd thing is that we are very supportive of one another – whether it be Jane’s soccer game or piano recital or John’s academic tournament or swim meet.  When I know Jack is working hard on an upcoming presentation I try to offer all the encouragement and support I can.  The three of them are equally supportive of whatever endeavor I may have (though fewer and far between in comparison).

Honestly, I think Jack and I both strive to offer a supportive environment because we both lacked it as kids.  My step-father was bitingly critical of everything my mom did – and the ‘trickle down’ theory was alive in well in our house because my mom was then very critical of how I cleaned house, how I cooked something or how I folded laundry.  Don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t treated like Cinderella – though I thought that at the time!

Where we often don’t realize how hurtful we can be is in the little things of everyday life.  Like about the bacon.  Jack cooks breakfast at least once every weekend.  I am notorious for ‘commenting’ if there is  a lot of crispy bacon and not a lot of what Jack likes to call ’slimy’ bacon.  It is something so little and rather insignificant, but when similar comments are directed at you on more than one occasion, I can see where the criticism gets old and you start to get defensive and want to retaliate.  Jack, I am very sorry that I nit-pick at you.

On the flip side, there are ways to offer criticism so that someone can actually benefit from it.  If you are trying to help someone improve how they do something, it is important to not speak to them in front of a crowd and speak respectively and kindly.  Even if it isn’t offered constructively, we as the recipient of a critical comment need to look beyond the negatively and try to understand what the underlying reason is and see if there is something that we could improve.  I don’t know about you, but I am never above trying to improve how I do or say something.  As long as you don’t berate me or beat me down with nastiness, I am open to suggestions.

I like to call this blog therapy.  This is a pleasant reminder that we all have our faults – and that we can make a conscious effort to improve how we communicate with one another.  I often tell my son John that you can catch more bees with honey – now it’s time for me to practice what I preach.