Criticisism

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things." - Winston Churchill

Nobody likes to be criticized. Some of us are addicted to approval. We go to such great lengths to avoid being criticized that we lose our authentic selves in order to become the person we think other people would approve of; forgetting that everybody has a different idea of what a desirable person looks like. We think that our authentic self is not good enough for others. We think that other people are somehow better, or more worthy than we are. This is especially true if they have more "success symbols" than we do.

But criticism is necessary, just as pain is. Without pain, we would never know what parts of our body were sick and needed to become healthy again. If nobody ever criticized us, we would never know where parts of us were weak and how we need to improve. We tend to think that our weak parts are an embarrassment that only we have; forgetting that everyone, even successful people, have weaknesses and need to improve in certain ways. Having weaknesses is part of being human. We will never be perfect.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do to a person is to criticise their weak points (but of course this needs to be done in the right way). It is a mark of maturity to be able to accept constructive criticism. A wise person will want to know how he or she can become better. A wise person understands that having a weakness does not mean that they are a bad or undesirable person; it is simply something that they need to pay attention to and work on improving. A wise person knows that all criticism is is a way of calling attention to something that needs to become better.