Think long and hard before you
criticize, condemn or complain about anyone to themselves or to other people.
Will any benefit come to you or them from your criticism?
When were you last
criticized? Was it by your spouse or partner over a trivial household matter? Was
it by your boss over your work not being on time? Was it by your mother or
father over the way you do something that never comes up to their standard? Did
you like it? I suspect not. I don’t like being criticized. I don’t like to be
criticized by my spouse for comments I passed before we married. I didn’t like
it when a very critical former boss criticized my work. I didn’t like it when
my mother said I was odd and getting odder. No one likes to be criticized. So
why do we criticize, condemn and complain about other people? They don’t like
it either.
One criticism my
spouse makes of me from before we were married is that I complained about her
spending and timekeeping. My criticisms must have cut deep, because I still
hear complaints about my complaints 15 years later. Everyone knows their own
faults. They don’t want to be reminded of them. So why do so many of us
criticize others for their failings, major or minor?
Chances are slim that
someone will actually change their opinion or behavior as a result of something
you say. So what is the point of saying it? What are you going to gain by doing
so? Maybe you think you will get peace of mind by letting them know your opinion.
You are not going to take it. But ask yourself whether this small amount of
personal satisfaction is worth the extra animosity it may create in the mind of
the other person.
We are human, and most
of us react to things we don’t like. We are programmed by evolution to react to
attacks on us with a fight or flight response. This is appropriate for dealing
with an attack by a saber-toothed tiger. It is usually an overreaction to the
minor incidents that irk us nowadays. We need to realize that the other party
is likely to react to our overreaction with a similar overreaction.
The trick is to find a
way of containing your anger without letting the other person know. A good
method is to write an email to the person who annoyed you. Omit their email
address. After you have written all that you are going to write, save a draft. Reread
it 24 hours later and decide if you need to edit it before sending, or to send
it at all. Chances are you will not feel quite so strongly as when you wrote
it. Omitting the address is a good way to make sure you don’t accidentally send
it.
Dale Carnegie gives a
good example of someone who learned to modify his condemnations of others. Young
Abraham Lincoln would often write letters critical of others. He ended up being
challenged to a duel by someone he had criticized in an anonymous letter to a
newspaper. The duel with broadswords on a sandbank of the Mississippi was
stopped by the seconds before any harm was done. The incident had such an
effect on Lincoln that he modified his behavior and afterwards seldom
criticized others. During the course of the American Civil War he had plenty to
be concerned about when his generals were not doing as well as he would like. He
wrote a letter to General Meade criticizing him for not attacking Lee’s forces
before they retreated across the Potomac. Lee’s defeated army had been
temporarily slowed by floodwaters of the Potomac after the Battle of Gettysburg,
and Lincoln thought Meade missed a great opportunity to end the war 3 years
early. But the letter was found in his papers. He never sent it.
Think long and hard
before you criticize, condemn or complain about others to themselves or to
third parties. Think about complaints you may make about the government or
businesses. Is your complaint justified? Will any benefit come from your
criticism? In some cases there is good reason, but even in those cases be
careful about the language you use.
This is an extract from ‘Improve your life’ by
George Nicholas. It is based on ideas of Dale Carnegie from ‘How to win friends
and influence people’.
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