Criticisms
written by Dwagoonie, Ashria, Silenus and vincent
With the growth of anonymity online, criticism seems to be more of a trend. When given in bad faith, criticism can become crippling to the person receiving it. It doesn't matter what you do or say. You'll be criticized either way. What actions you take or don’t. The things you say and don’t. What you choose to wear. How you look. It never ends.
We are conditioned to live up to the standards that others place on us. It begins with our family and parents. From the moment we can crawl there are expectations placed upon us. Even with the most supportive and loving family, the voices of our community tell us who we must be to be accepted. Eventually even our own minds become the voice of obligations that others have planted in us.
Those little voices in the back of our minds grow louder until even those with the strongest self-esteem find themselves constantly fighting against the criticism from those who do not accept them. We start to doubt ourselves and grow afraid to show people who we really are for fear of rejection.
We begin to criticize ourselves even when no one else is around. Slowly shifting from being concerned about whether you're doing the right thing into worrying whether you're doing it "well enough." It erodes away our confidence and we begin to expect failure at every turn.
With so much coming at us from every direction, how do we break the cycle?
We must learn to stand up and be a voice against the many for both ourselves and the others around us who have been beaten down by criticism. In making a stand against the little things you build your confidence back up a little bit at a time until you become overwhelmingly you.
Be mindful of your thoughts and your words to other people. Make a choice not to criticize. Instead develop your communication skills and approach things from a positive, mindful attitude. This is an extremely easy thing to say but will be much more difficult in practice. We need to be able to constructively criticize "things", "people", "experiences", etc. Before we ever utter a word, our intent must be to come from a place of peace and serenity.
We should pause and truly look at what we are criticizing. Think about how important it is to the person we are speaking with. How much work has been poured into it? How open are they to criticism? Constructive criticism is a good and necessary thing, but it's about how the message is delivered, not necessarily the message itself. Be mindful of both your words and how they will be heard and received.
Going forward we must teach our children that it isn't okay to be a destructive and negative force in the lives of others. We can pass along these ideals and can turn the rules of social profiling and stereotyping to something less judgmental. We can face the source of many of our negative emotions and self-criticism together and overcome it for the future well-being of humankind.
