Monday, June 19, 2006
In the course of our lives, some of the worst experiences we might ever have are the biting and stinging comments from others about ourselves. Physical harm is terrible...but there's nothing quite like the haunting ego-bashing from critics. True or untrue, harsh reviews tend to hurt.
When true..well..they should be received in good spirit. It's probably worse when they are inaccurate, thus doubly injuring our pride. What to do? Why not just clarify gentlemanly? If not, being brash in rebuttal would be to become a harsh critic too.
Being mindful of how we take criticism and how we criticise (constructively I hope), we should strive to be our worst and thus best critics.
While praise lets us know where we are already good, blame more readily lets us know how we can be even better.
Even if buried within a thousand praises, it is the rare but precious negative feedback that really makes us improve. Thus, more worrying than getting negative feedback is getting none of it!
Even the Buddha commented that as long as alive, we are subject to the worldly winds of praise, blame (and indifference). What matters is whether we relate to them skilfully, with a balanced equanimous mind.
Not everyone criticises constructively; but everyone can take criticism constructively.
If we can't stop criticism, we might as well learn to take it well.
We ourselves should not demand sincerity from everyone; but we should demand ourselves to be sincere to everyone.
- From daily enlightenment
 ~ Live for the moment! ~ ;
