Perception Part 1: Criticism ~ by Andi Lawrencovna

photo: pexels/jami jari

As a human being, each day we are prone to receiving criticism
from our fellows who walk the world around us. The media is full of the hype of who gained weight, who lost it, “Oh my God, Jason Momoa’s dad body!” and the other multitude of ridiculous critiques that do nothing but serve to show how shallow and cruel we can be to each other. In the Starbucks line: “I can’t believe that woman bought an espresso for her daughter!” Behind the driver doing the speed limit in the passing lane: “Who taught you to drive, you idiot!” To the coworker at the office: “My gosh, you go to the bathroom a hundred times a day!” 


We don’t know what’s going on in those other people’s minds or lives or hearts, what their needs and wants or what-nots are. But we judge them all the same. 

We don’t think about doing it, a lot of times it just happens because we are so indoctrinated into this mindset of critiquing. 

Think about it, from our earliest memories, we’re being told “Don’t be like Tommy” or “Don’t do what Jessie did.” We compare ourselves to each other, and against each other, and our entire perceptions are based on the critiques that our subconscious makes every time we’re put up against another person. 

In every walk of life. 

Truthfully, we all deal with it and don’t think anymore about it than

photo: Pexels Edu Carvalho

that. The comments affect each of us, but we’re so used to being commented upon, that “it” just “is,” and the people who can brush off the critiques are the high-ranking politicians and businessmen and women of the world. The rest of us get by, constantly subconsciously trying to change other people’s views of ourselves by redefining who we are based on their comments. 

Subconsciously. We don’t even know we’re doing it most of the time. Until it’s pointed out to us. 

My volleyball teammate, an older guy, and by older I mean he’s 50 to my 30, commented to me when I was around 25 or so: “I can’t believe you still bite your nails.” 

Innocuous. Who the heck cares? It’s not like he was saying: that’s a dangerous habit to have as we tend not to scape beneath our nails every time we wash our hands and so whatever has gotten under them, when you go to bite them, you are then ingesting…

Nope, he was just saying: “That’s a disgusting habit” which, in my mind, translated to: “You’re disgusting for biting your nails.” 

(I’m proud to say I haven’t “really” bitten my nails since! But that’s besides the point…ish.)

He said that, and I took care to make sure my nails aren’t bitten anymore, that he can’t ever say it to me again.  He’s like an older brother teasing a younger sister, and yet one comment made me change my life. Granted, it was a healthy change... 

Photo: Pexels Natasha Daher

I went to a doctor for a problem and instead of dealing with that problem, she told me, condescended to me, about a different problem, one that I’ve struggled with all my life, namely, my weight. She made me feel so self-conscious and “gross” by her comments and her, what felt like to me, disgusted diagnosis, that I left that office and spiraled down for over a year after what she said. (I haven’t been back to her, and my new doctor is freaking AWESOME from that standpoint, working with me, not at me). 

These are all critiques. The perceptions of other people that make us look at our own “senses of self” and redefine ourselves by those other opinions. They are the perceptions that color the judgments of other people around us. Baby boomers think of millennials as pansy pushovers who never had to work for anything. (Gross over generalization here, just to make a point!) Millennials swear that the boomers don’t know what we’ve had to deal with because “our world” changed faster with the internet. 

The boom of social media made criticism skyrocket, and perception become dependent on popular trends. Is there a way to overcome it? No. Not entirely.

We all criticize, even at the smallest levels. 

“That nail polish color does not look good on you.” Not gonna change the world or ruin a life, but it’s a criticism, and that person probably won’t wear that color again.  

What we can do is try to change the dynamic. 

Let’s criticize the good things about people. Let’s try to ignore the negative tropes and focus on the positive. 

You don’t like that nail polish, but dang, it looks like you got it professionally done, so why don’t you say: “Where’d you get your manicure? It looks great!”

Photo: Pexels Tim Mossholder

Compliments are just positive criticisms, but we’re so trained to focus on the negative that the good gets pushed aside. 

So, for this first blog post about perception, I challenge you to go a day without negatively criticizing something or someone. 

No, I lied, go one hour. Let’s make it manageable for you…oops, there I go criticizing and judging already. Guess I need to work on my own lesson a bit, too, right?