“I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.”
–Thomas Jefferson
Criticism is always painful, whether it is valid or not. Most of us want a good reputation, and some of us are obsessed with the goal of avoiding any criticism whatsoever. We want to be viewed by others as absolutely flawless. Unfortunately, this is an impossible goal for any of us, no matter how hard we try to achieve it.
If we live by a set of principles and values of our own choosing, we can please ourselves and some other people, but we cannot please everyone. People’s views and values are so diverse that any behavior that pleases some is bound to displease others. Any effort to please everybody, and avoid all criticism, is not only doomed to fail, but it will cause us to selectively violate our own principles and values in our vain efforts to please certain people to such an extent that we will be displeased with ourselves. When we make decisions on the basis of how others will react to the decisions instead of basing them on a set of rock-solid values that we believe in, we are not being true to ourselves.
Criticism is a fact of life that we must all learn to live with. In his book, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie relates the story of how Eleanor Roosevelt as a young girl sought the advice of her aunt, Theodore Roosevelt’s sister, on the subject of dealing with criticism. Her aunt told her to, “Never be bothered by what people say as long as you know in your heart you are right.”
This advice was especially valuable when Eleanor became First Lady. In her effort to deal with the bombardment of criticism that inevitably comes to anyone who lives in the White House, she developed a philosophy that she shared with others. Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice was, “Do what you feel in your heart to be right–for you’ll be criticized, anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”
The Greek philosopher Plato said, “When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.” If we live good lives based on solid values, people will know us by our actions, and most of them will discount unjust criticism of us as motivated by jealousy or other selfish factors. In the words of Jean Sibelius, “Pay no attention to what critics say; there has never been a statue erected to a critic.”
Think about it.
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Copyright 2024
Allen W. Smith
