Respect Given and Criticism Taken
The relationship between the two or lack thereof
I am certainly not claiming to be unique in this manner but if you criticized me, I’d subconsciously find a way to reframe it.
High school at McDonald’s. Owner barking at me about stuff. I’m the crew chief, of course, he’s barking at me, he’s the owner.
UPS in college. Man, the chewing out I’d get by the supervisors. Finally, I’d say, I am practically doing your job. The look on the sup’s face. Another sup told me I had no future at UPS. I responded that he literally had no say in my future.
Unmarried people giving me advice about marriage. Are you serious? Then people without children giving me advice about my kids. What a joke. Reframe special.
And I’ll not mention the do-gooders and who I call the Serious People.
The constant need to do this in a productive manner at work. I mean, give me a break and let me work!
On and on.
But there was another factor at stake that I did not realize was happening.
If I respected or even liked you, your criticism would send me in a tailspin.
You have a conflict with someone in authority, you’d defer to them. They criticize you and you are frozen in fear because you respect them or think you should, instead of dealing with them mano y mano respectfully. I can easily name several cases of this in my personal life.
You have friends that are dear to you that say things. This aspect is what lead me to say what I am about to say. These friends you respect? They are totally speaking from their perspective, their biases. Their criticisms get no more gravity than anyone else.
The trigger that led me to this article was a friend point blank in front of others a couple of months ago telling me I was guilty of something that I knew he was guilty of. I was pretty upset but held back.
Then he did it again this week. But by now I had started to reframe what was being said, which I had not done before or had not been able to. I understood more something I’d been doing for years.
Had another lost friendship due to her doing the same. Honestly, kind of comical looking back.
The way I have recently figured out to reframe this is that I don’t fit in their little box of life, I am merely bumping into their wee little box and shaking the contents. Silly, right? Works for me!
Before I continue, please note I am not saying to be disrespectful.
It is difficult, I think, for me to explain this, so I will keep it simple in conclusion.
I am telling you now, accept one’s criticism, think about it, chew it like a cow’s cud. But, totally decouple it from what you think of that person.
God bless!
