Criticism 

The Teacher

The teacher walked into kindergarten. She loved teaching. She really enjoyed being a kindergarten teacher because she got to set the tone for what learning would be like. She hoped that her experience would be a positive experience for the kids. She hoped they would learn to love learning.

The teacher was quick to point out the kindergarteners’ flaws. She knew that the kids would love school if they were learning. The best way she knew to help students learn was to point out when they could have done their job in a way that was better than the way they were currently doing it. When a kindergartener drew a stick figure, the teacher would point out how the picture would have been better, if it were three dimensional. When the kindergartener mastered the alphabet, the teacher pointed out that the student would be happier if he were reading literary classics.

The teacher saw herself as inspirational. She had already walked the path of school and she wanted to let the kindergarteners know that there was something better out there. When little Susy got all her numbers correct, the teacher pointed out that she would do better if she could memorize her times tables. When Johnathan read his first picture book, the teacher pointed out that the chapter books were more important.

The teacher wanted her kids to be humble. She felt that humility helped people be more open to learning. She would make comments like, “It took you long enough, but you finally did it.” She would compare her students to others. The teacher would acknowledge success and point out flaws in the same sentence.

The kindergarteners did not love school as the teacher had hoped. Some of the tender-hearted kids started to develop anxiety disorders. The children started to experience themselves at failures. They didn’t like attending a school where they always saw themselves as not being successful. They didn’t feel they had what it took to be a good student. Many of the students gave up and stopped trying hard. Some of the students didn’t handle their frustration well and they would lash out in anger. A few of the students turned their frustrations inward and became critical of themselves.

Criticism

Jacob decided that he was going to have to stop criticizing Tiffany. This was going to be hard for him. Jacob was very rigid in his thinking. He thrived on routine and cleanliness. Tiffany was more of a free spirit. She left her “essence” everywhere around the house in the form of half-finished art projects, bath towels, and bras. Tiffany was always late because she was constantly trying to do all of her projects at once. She was overwhelmed a lot because she had a huge to-do list that never finished. She was constantly nagging him because he didn’t help her with her to-do list. It didn’t matter how many times Jacob told her how to organize her life, she just couldn’t do it. Jacob groaned at the thought of having to stop criticizing Tiffany. He worried that if he stopped “coaching” her, she would only get worse.

Jacob decided that the pain he was causing Tiffany by coaching her, was more damaging than any benefit she was getting from the criticism. The coaching didn’t seem to be working anyway.

Jacob thought for a while about the reason he was criticizing. Was he really trying to help Tiffany, or was he trying to change her so that he could feel emotionally stable? He dug in deep and examined his motivation.

When he was in coaching mode his heart wasn’t actually filled with love for Tiffany. His heart was filled with resentment. He was thinking a little bit about how happy she would be if she grew as a person, but mostly he was thinking about how miserable she was making him feel.

Jacob determined that his reason for coaching Tiffany was primarily self-focused. Jacob wondered what it was he was trying to achieve. After some self-reflection, Jacob realized that he was trying to achieve a sense of peace and stability. Jacob saw Tiffany’s actions as his biggest obstacle towards feeling peaceful.

Jacob wondered if there were other possible ways that could achieve a sense of peace, without having to make his wife change. Jacob reasoned that if he found a way of achieving peace that he had 100% control over, he could achieve that fairly quickly. It would be an easier path than his current method of changing his wife so he could obtain peace.

Criticism Logistics

Criticism is the practice of comparing a person’s current state to an ideal state that we are expecting. This lets the other person know that their current state is insufficient. If the other person believes your criticism to be true, that person will recognize that their current state is inadequate.

 When a person feels inadequate, they typically feel a desire to change. People want to feel valuable. If someone they trust is telling them they are inadequate, they will want to strive to be different so that they can feel adequate and valuable once again.

 If their attempts to change is met with constant criticism, the person will then determine that they will never be good enough in the other person’s eyes. They then typically go one of two routes. They agree with the criticizer that they are not good enough or they determine that the criticizer’s perception is flawed and is therefore not a determinant of who they are. To determine that a criticizer’s perception is flawed, the person often starts looking for faults in the criticizer.

 People rarely have unlimited tenacity. When people try to achieve and are met with criticism, repeatedly, they often become frustrated and give up. Once they give up, they rarely entertain the idea that they want to achieve adequacy. Instead, they resign themselves to being inadequate.

 Criticism rarely accomplishes the purpose of changing another person. This leaves the criticizer with the responsibility of determining their motive for using it. Rather than being an instrument for change, criticism is more realistically used as a method of communicating resentment.

 Resentment of others often occurs when we feel that other people are infringing on our ability to accomplish our own personal desires. The inability of accomplishing the desires results in a loss of peace or a sense of adequacy. If my value as a person is determined by how others see me, and if every time I arrive late for a function, I feel other people see me as inadequate, then my value is a direct function of my arriving on time. When my wife is constantly late, I have resentment towards her for making me feel inadequate.

If we operate under the premise that our value is innate and that all human life is valuable, we can determine that anytime we feel invaluable it is because we are committing an error in how we are measuring our value. It is the standard that we are imposing that is creating the unsettling feeling, it is not our spouse. It would be easier for us to stop measuring our success by how we assume other people see us than it would be to force our spouse to never be late again.

When we do not accomplish everything on our to-do list, it can result in us feeling overwhelmed. If we believe that our spouse’s lack of effort is the reason for us feeling overwhelmed, then our resentment can build toward them. We can become so hyperfocused on our spouse’s lack of teamwork that we end up wasting previous energy.

A strange phenomenon occurs where people are often higher functioning when their spouse is away on vacation. They are able to keep a tighter schedule. Their house is cleaner. They have more relaxation time. Their mind is less stressed. They are one adult instead of two, but they can get more done and feel relaxed while doing it.

When we are with our spouse, we often have an unspoken contract in our mind about who is going to do what and when. When that unspoken expectation is broken, it results in our plans failing. We start to feel upset because the other person isn’t fulfilling their end of the expectation. This results in time and energy lost due to anger, resentment, and arguments.

If we do not want to feel overwhelmed, there are a million ways we can change our life so that we no longer feel overwhelmed. Some of these changes will be drastic, but they can be accomplished.

If we want to feel at peace, we do not have to change our spouse. We can chart a course for how we can accomplish peace, without requiring us to change the other person. Peace is more likely to be found in something we do rather than something our spouse does.

Sometimes our motivation is not selfish and we honestly want our spouse to grow. We see their potential. We know they are not living up to it. We have a strong belief in them. There are other ways to helping someone grow that are much more beneficial than criticism. Criticism causes damage and doesn’t motivate very well.