Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson / Winston Churchill

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Criticism

By Peter Shepherd

In the first stage of this series we have been looking at the factors that can cause fragmentation of our identity: invalidation (feeling put-down by someone), co-dependence (where we put aside our own feelings), suppression (the opposition to one's goals and purposes by another), and in today's lesson we look more at how criticism can affect us, and how best to handle it.

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A person tends to defend himself and protest, when confronted by another's criticism or complaint. Nevertheless he may afterward start to introspect - "Is it really true, what was said?" - causing him to fixate his attention inwardly on himself. Compulsive introspection is caused by a false criticism being accepted, which causes the person to look inwardly and worry about the mystery caused by this error. In a normal person this can cause diminished activity and unhappiness or illness. With a neurotic person it can push him over the edge into psychosis.

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This may begin early in childhood with the 'overcautious-parent' syndrome - "What are you doing?", "Careful, careful, careful!" when you're climbing up a ladder, and such things that interfere with the natural flow of simple actions, so the person arrives at a point in life where he is inhibited from handling the world around him. Such a person has to think about everything he does, rather that just do it.

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Another's criticism or complaint is rarely specific and accurate enough to be helpful. Often it is a generality or exaggeration, i.e. more than the truth ("You're always moaning" whereas I only moan sometimes); or it may be not quite true ("You don't give clear instructions" whereas I have normally been giving clear instructions but I didn't in this particular person's case).

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If the criticism is completely off the mark it is less likely to cause confusion and introspection. The trouble is, criticism often has an element of truth in it, and if the criticism is rejected off-hand, the truth of things remains uninspected and unhandled.

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Even if the criticism is accurate, having behaved in a certain way for some time, often all his life, a person asserts the rightness of it - he IS the behavior! - and becomes resistive to inspecting and handling the condition objectively. Further criticism just makes this worse. But unless a person is able to evaluate his own behavior objectively, which includes learning from other peoples' point of view, he will not be able to break free from the shackles of a limited personal identity and realize his actual unbounded Higher Self.

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For each person that you know, consider if there is something which that person has suggested is wrong with your behavior or attitude?
For each criticism that you find, consider whether it's an over-generalization or exaggeration, and whether the criticism was made from a viewpoint of intolerance or negative thinking.

Was the criticism based on a false assumption?

Is the criticism partly true or is it true of just a specific instance?

Have you ever criticized someone of the same thing?

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The hardest struggle of all is to be something different from what the average man is.

~Robert H. Schuller

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सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं
सच है सतत संघर्ष ही ।
संघर्ष से हटकर जिये तो क्‍या जिये हम या कि तुम,
जो नत हुआ वह मृत हुआ,ज्‍यो वृन्‍त से झरकर कुसुम ।
जो पंथ भूल कर रूका नहीं,
जो हार देख झुका नहीं,
जिसने मरण को भी लिया हो जीत, है जीवन वही।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।

ऐसा करो जिससे न प्राणों में कहीं जड़ता रहे,
जो है जहां चुपचाप अपने आप से लड़ता रहे।
जो भी परिस्थितियां मिलें,
कांटे चुभें, कलियां खिलें,
टूटे नहीं इंसान बस संदेश जीवन का यही।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।

हमने रचा, आओ हमीं अब तोड़ दें इस प्‍यार को
यह क्‍या मिलन, मिलना वही जो मोड़ दे मंझधार को।
जो साथ फूलों के चले,
जो ढाल पाते ही ढले,
यह जिंदगी क्‍या जिंदगी जो सिर्फ पानी-सी बही।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।

अपने हृदय का सत्‍य अपने आप हमको खोजना
अपने नयन का नीर अपने आप हमको पोंछना।
आकाश सुख देगा नहीं,
धरती पसीजी है कहीं,
हर एक राही को भटक कर ही दिशा मिलती रही।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।

बेकार है मुस्‍कान से ढकना हृदय की खिन्‍नता
आदर्श हो सकती नहीं तन और मन की भिन्‍नता।
जब तक बंधी है चेतना,
जब तक प्रणय दुख से घना,
तब न मानूंगा कभी इस राह को ही मैं नहीं।
सच हम नहीं, सच तुम नहीं।
~ Jagdish Gupt

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Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible.

Mao Tse-Tung

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Lessons of the Square Watermelon :

Japanese grocery stores had a problem. They are much smaller than shops in the USA and therefore don't have room to waste. Watermelons, big and round, wasted a lot of space. Most people would simply tell the grocery stores that watermelons grow round and there is nothing that can be done about it.
That is how majority of people would respond. But some Japanese farmers took a different approach. If the supermarkets wanted a square watermelon, they asked themselves, 'How can we provide one?' It wasn't long before they invented the square watermelon.

The solution to the problem of round watermelons was not to solve as the farmers did not assume it was impossible and simply asked how it could be done.
They found out that if you put the watermelon in a square box when they are growing, the watermelon will take on the shape of the box - and grow into a square fruit.

This made the grocery stores happy and had the added benefit that it was much easier and cost effective to ship the watermelons. Consumers also loved them because they took less space in their refrigerators which are much smaller than those in the US meaning that the growers could charge a premium price for them.

Few Lessons from this story which may help us :

Don't Assume: The major problem was that most people had always seen round watermelons so they automatically assumed that square watermelons were impossible before even thinking about the question.. Things that we have been doing a certain way our entire life have taken on the aura of the round watermelon and we likely don't even take the time to consider if there is another way to do it. Breaking ourselves from assuming this way can greatly improve our overall life as we are constantly looking for new and better ways to do things.

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Question habits: The best way to tackle these assumptions is to question our habits. If we can make an effort to question the way we do things on a consistent basis, we will find that we can continually improve the way that we work. Forming habits when they have been well thought out is usually a POSITIVE THING, but most of us have adopted our habits from various people and places without even thinking about them.

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Be creative: When faced with a problem, be POSITIVE AND CREATIVE in looking for a solution. This often requires thinking outside the box. Most people who viewed this question likely thought they were being asked how they could genetically alter water melons to grow square which would be a much more difficult process to accomplish. By looking at the question from an alternative perspective, however, the solution was quite simple. Being creative and looking at things in different ways in all portions of our live will help us find solutions to many problems where others can't see them.

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Look for a POSITIVE WAY: The square watermelon question was simply seeking a better and more convenient way to do something. The stores had flagged a problem they were having and asked if a solution was possible. It's impossible to find a better way if we are never asking the question in the first place. Get into the habit of asking our self, 'Is there a better way we could be doing this?' and we will find there often is.

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Impossibilities often aren’t: If we begin with the notion that something is impossible, then it obviously will be for us. If, on the other hand, we decide to see if something is possible or not, we will find out through trial and error. Take away the lessons and apply them to all areas in our life. We will find that by consistently applying them, we will constantly be improving all aspects of our life.

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"Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance"

~William Shakespeare

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Honesty Is Still The Best Policy

Once a general manager wanted to test his people, who had come from all over India, about their values of life. He announced that in their seminar folder, there was a PVC pouch and in it a seed. When they return, they must put the seed in a pot with good soil and look after it very well. He would hold a competition at the next year's seminar and that the best plants would be awarded suitably.

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Everyone did what was told to him. A year passed quickly. And next year in a big hall, a great scene! There were hundreds of pots and a great variety of plants - all except one. In this one pot was soil, but no plant! The owner of the pot was standing quietly and seemingly ashamed of himself.

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The general manager called him on the stage. He asked him what happened and he told him the truth. He planted the seed, which he was given, and did what was to be done - but nothing happened.

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The general manager declared him the winner!

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Everyone was shocked.

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It was announced, "Gentlemen! The seeds I gave you were boiled seeds. You planted them and nothing happened! You acted smartly and used some other seeds. This man was honest to his work and therefore, he did not cheat me or himself!"

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“No Great Discovery Was Ever Made Without A Bold Guess”

~Sir Isaac Newton

" A scientific guess is itself an undiscovered logical POSITIVE LOOK which leads to the first step towards upcoming discoveries."

~Imm

Newton was also a man of versatile quality. He was physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher in a row. His contribution in the development of science is a special one. He I best known for his explanation of Universal Gravitation and three laws of motion, and he was able to prove that the reason of both the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are controlled by the same Neutral laws. These findings could make a revolutionary change in the development of science. In mechanical science his great contribution was in optics. He could make a reflecting telescope. He also made some research on light and stars. His research on General binomial Theorem helped to be introduced today’s Calculus.

Newton was born to a farmer family but before three months of his birth his father died and then he was brought up to his maternal grandmother as her mother remarried. Newton could show his talent from his early life in The King’s School in Grantham and later he joined to the Cambridge University where he took his higher degrees.

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Happy Sir Isaac Newton's Birthday!