Some time back, I was embroiled in a conflict that I personally considered extremely petty, and unraveled into something much larger than it really had any business being. In the best interest of all parties involved, myself included, I don't feel like discussing the issue itself anymore. It has, however, made me ponder a lot recently - how does one go about being as objective with oneself as possible, while not being too self-critical?
I consider myself as someone that can identify and accept my own faults truthfully. It stems a lot from my personal belief in justice and fairnes s, since you can't really claim to be fair if you're not even fair with yourself. This doesn't imply I'm perfect in this area, far from it - my admittedly strong defensiveness prevents me from readily accepting these criticisms at first confrontation, only fully sinking in after I've had sufficient time to cool down and think over things. All the same, I'm glad to have this ability, as it has helped put myself in the shoes of others and see my actions for what they really appear to be.
That said...it isn't always a good thing, as I've recently discovered. The problem inherently lies in the basic nature in criticism: you usually criticise someone when you don't like what they're doing. In an ideal world, criticism would be fair, balanced and delivered in an firm, objective manner. But we all know it rarely works this way. More often than not, criticism comes from people who may not necessarily like us in the first place. And when you don't like someone, you don't exactly make much effort to be objective - it's far more tempting to try and bring the person down emotionally. I'm not saying that people will always default to this mannerism, but it remains a valid concern when receiving feedback.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have friends, who are often said to be the holy grail when it comes to true, honest feedback and criticism. To an extent, this is true, because they're the people who will actually care about you, and that's why I'll always value the feedback of my close friends over anybody else. The problem is that they're your friends, the people that like you. It's a direct contrast to the above problem with the people who don't like you - by nature, your friends will tend to default to seeing the good side of you. This is great for being friends, less so for being fully objective.
Of course, one could always say "well, go with the middle ground then!", right? Especially for a centrist like me; middle ground is literally my default. But here we have yet another problem: where, exactly, on that middle ground? During the conflict I mentioned earlier, I received very different responses from different individuals about my handling of the situation. If you take all feedback into account, the grey area was immense, and it often is in other situations as well.
A whole 'nother option is to become indifferent to such things. Over time, I have seen more and more people resign to doing this - perhaps a byproduct of the high school years, where the amount of irresponsible backstabbing and insults can be too overwhelming for some to bear, many have simply chosen to not give a shit about anything.
I guess it works, in a way, but I don't want to have a resort to that, because it's such a slippery slope. Soon, everyone's opinion won't matter - I'm the best, no matter what anyone says. When you actually start believing that notion, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from being a colossal jerk, and that's not who I want to be. Although I'm well aware that I can't please everyone, I really don't prefer people disliking me either. It keeps me awake at night.
I'm stuck in a conundrum here. Again, I'm not trying to please everyone; I've long learnt that it's pointless. But how do you go about being objective with yourself when you don't even know what's objective anymore? How do you know which opinion is the most genuine, given that everyone will have some form of bias, but you'll never really know how much there is and where it lies?
Help.
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