Well, it’s been quite a while since my last post, and here goes this one. Abstract as always, I will present to you my humble views on a certain issue in life.
Ok, so imagine you’re having one of those long and witty debates with your group, be it you’re friends, coworkers, colleagues or family. Debates in general are healthy and good for your brain; however this is only if YOU let them be that way.
Subjects of debates could range from the smallest things such as which tire on your car you’re using, to very important scientific facts for example. Now the issue here is how the behavior of the debate would be like.
How you perceive a certain view on an issue is totally under your control, you can take the view seriously, you could deny it out of factual reason or utter ignorance, i.e. be in denial. You could also work up an argument that would leave you hurt and wounded, or you could just gracefully accept the view as an external gesture to entertain the person spelling out his mind to you, without truly accepting it. On the other hand you could truly accept the view to be your own and build on that mutual perception with the person that you’re having the debate with.
Now, most people ignore this fact and tend to feel the need to impose their views on others, or that they are inclined to accept the other’s view as their own. This is outright WRONG. One of the most important virtues of a human being is the ability to express his point of view efficiently and to handle other’s point of view with care, as to not hurt others and most importantly, not to hurt himself. That been said; let’s go on to the important part.
Humans are extremely complex in nature, they tend to build their own characters through information derived from their mediums, be it a political group, a society, a country or even a planet as some whackos would suggest, we will disregard the planet part in this piece however. Due to this, humans have developed labels for themselves; take for example conservatives, liberals, environmentalists, also cults, nationalities and tribes in some parts of the world.
Some people would consider these labels to be boundaries among us which are only good for creating unsolvable disagreements regarding interests that might cause wars for example. This is true, and you can never fix it as it’s a result of plain history accumulated over thousands of years, unless you are attempting to reprogram the human brain. However, you could always say that the glass is half full rather than saying its half empty and work with what you have.
You could use these labels for you benefit, by understanding the background of the person or the group you’re having the debate with, you would know which approach to take when posing you’re point of view, In fact , you could know if you’re even to bother giving your point ! As you’re completely confident that your perception of a certain issue will not be accepted or even considered.
Continuing, suppose you did pose your point of view to others, and they did not accept it. What is the most common scenario?
You see, most humans have egos that need to be kept happy, that is a fact that we cannot deny whatsoever. Now, when posing a view that is not accepted to a certain human, he or they will do something called CRITICISM!
Let’s see now, criticism, what caused it, and if it’s good.
Criticism can happen for a number of reasons, it could be you’re teacher helping you in learning something the right way, you’re father trying to raise you correctly, you’re doctor trying to help you keep healthy or YOU’R PEERS DISAGREEING WITH YOU ON A CERTAIN ISSUE.
The latter is the most relevant to our subject. Depending on your peer’s perception of the world around him/her or his/her relationship with you, criticism will vary from constructive to destructive. Now the perception of criticism will vary from person to person based on the same reasons mentioned above. Some people will take criticism lightly and some might be hurt by it.
Why? Why are we sometimes hurt by criticism, the fact is, we’re not hurt ourselves, rather our ego is hurt. Ego is a human killer; Ego could make you hurt people and hurt yourself. It could make you do the most unintelligent things you could ever think of, for example, CRITICIZING SOMEONE based on your EGO!
Now, How are you to handle criticism?
Well, the first point is giving criticism, you should ask yourself very clearly before doing so, WHY are you criticizing? Do you really need to criticize? And is you’re criticism going to be constructive, because to tell you the truth, there are no good consequences out of destructive criticism, you will only make enemies. Even if you’re criticism is constructive, will it hurt the person being criticized and is it the right time to give such criticism? I must have said criticism a gazillion times in the last paragraph but never mind.
When giving criticism, you should truly assess yourself before doing so, is it worth it? I’m I benefiting from it? Only the answers to these questions should give the green light to criticize, other than that, keep a tight foot on the breaks, or you could hurt someone really bad.
Moving on to the second point, which is perceiving criticism, before taking it lightly or even actually accepting the criticism being handed out, you should ask yourself , who is the person criticizing me? What are his credentials? Is he known for his constructiveness? Is he trying to help me or is he just trying to impose his ideology on me? Would I benefit if I replied, negatively or positively? Is he criticizing others in the same manner without distinguishing between the people being criticized?
Answering these questions and many more, could prevent you form hurting yourself with useless nonsense criticism or actually improving factors of your perception of something by accepting the criticism being given.
In conclusion, I would say that this doesn’t even cover one tenth of the topic, but the bottom line is to keep an OPEN MIND, an open mind which doesn’t allow itself to hurt others or to hurt itself, an open mind that will keep you at peace as a productive human being that is able to express himself freely within the boundaries of his medium without stepping over the lines that others have put. And to accept the expression of others even though they have crossed the line, in a positive manner.
