Day Forty Eight: Tough

I don’t take criticism well, but I am learning to.

A former roommate of mine once told me that it bothered her that when she told me something I needed to change, I made no outward signal that I had heard her or acknowledged what she had said. There were a thousand things wrong with that relationship that we don’t need to go into, but she had a point. Whenever someone criticizes me, even constructively, I have a tendency to either be silent or defensive.

Everybody does that, you say. Well, yeah, but that doesn’t make it a good thing. My mother and father and brother tend to criticize me a lot, mostly over things I don’t believe really matter: the state of my car’s interior cleanliness, losing my keys or getting lost on the road. But what makes it really hard is that to them, they say these things and move on. I dwell on them for hours. When someone makes a comment about my writing, about my singing, about my work, about my art, I don’t usually acknowledge it outwardly. Inside I’m having a little panic attack.

So I’m working on changing that. I’m working on being a little better at accepting criticism, asking for help and understanding when people are trying to point me in the right direction. I’m working at becoming better at doing it without being defensive, without getting angry and without dwelling on it for months at a time. I’m working on this because I’m tired of feeling bad about things I do or do not do.

It will take some time, so bear with me.

Challenge to my Readers:

Be careful how you give suggestions. Even if you think you’re helping, you don’t always know what a person is going through emotionally or mentally when you give them help. I know a lot of people have trouble asking for help, but sometimes it is better to wait until they ask you.