We tackled in the two previous articles the issue of criticism and its sorts: the constructive sort aiming at achieving progress and growth and the destructive sort that seeks nothing, but destruction and frustration. In both cases, you are to judge what will help you in your life.
They say, personality is not an unchangeable fingerprint you were born with, you are to hold full responsibility to shape it the way you want. Criticism is beneficial for building and improving your character.
Thus, a person who seeks to achieve success should be open to criticism and consider it a positive vision that may help him to improve his life. You may think that not all the criticism you take is always right or aims for your good; you are right, however you should use it for your own good if you think positively in it and study it objectively, then you may neglect what you consider a destructive criticism.
You may ask, what is the difference between criticism and advice? I think the difference lays in the inner intentions of a person and not in word choice or the manner it was said. As an advice is a method used to correct a behavior of an endeared person, while criticism is expressing an opinion of a situation or behavior that deserves to be criticized while the person who is criticized may not think the same. It is said on the importance of advice that refusing today’s costless advice will lead to costly regret in the future. This can also be applied to criticism too as constructive and honest criticism might help you evade regret and terrible pain.
When advising or criticizing you should take into consideration the following:
1- Follow the golden rule in any conversation, that is, to taste your words before uttering them. Harmful words that do not consider a person’s dignity or affect his image before others or himself will induce him to take a defensive stance to all what he does and he will never change. Keep in mind not to humiliate that person as no one on earth would ever achieve success if he was desperate and self-defeated. When you criticize a person with respect, you are enhancing trust between you and him. He will appreciate and respect you in return. You both will be partners of the same success.
2- Don’t concentrate on the weak points only, but rather focus on the positive and negative points too thus you would create balance and a bond of rapport between you and the person you criticize. We previously stated that mentioning either the positive or the negative points only will lead to neglect person’s weaknesses or cause him to fall in despair the moment he thinks that he has done nothing positive in his life.
3- At any case, provide positive and applicable suggestions to support the person you are criticizing; thus you would resemble a doctor that discovers the disease and offers its cure. This is what our God-gifted humanity suggests and our entrusted mission is to tend the earth and protect it as there is no way our human universe would last if we ruin one another.
Anba Ermia,
General Bishop
Head of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center
