If it is untrue disregard it, if unfair keep from irritation, if it is ignorant smile.

Posted by Aundra

When I am feeling small, negative feedback seems to better than none. I would rather have a person hate me than overlook me. As long as I am hated I make a difference.

Hunting, throwing stones at wildlife, buying exotic pets, picking flowers, criticizing prominent people, may at times be an attempt to make contact with, even identify with, that which seems free and beautiful and so frightfully unlike us.

When people criticize me I am not any less because of that. It is not a criticism of me but critical thinking from them. They are expressing their thoughts and feelings, not my being.

Before, I thought I was actually fighting for my own self-worth; that is why I so desperately wanted people to like me. I thought their liking me was a comment on me, but it was a comment on them.

The question I could ask myself after receiving criticism, “Does this statement give any insight into myself?” not “Is it true?” If I say, “That’s true,” those words really mean, “I think about myself in the same way.” No one is in a position to know whether or not it is true.

A criticism is at best a description of the immediate past. It does not describe the future course of my life. So is it true to how I have been or true to what I will be? And more importantly, to which end will I use it?