I keep catching myself wanting to criticize someone. Anyone. About anything. I am not picky!
To all appearances it looks as if a situation urgently requires me to voice a legitimate concern. But more often than not, it serves only one purpose: to make me feel better. That’s because if I find fault with other people, then by implication I am better than they are … I mean, how else could I see what’s wrong with them? And being better than they are makes me feel better. Or so I think …
Yup, up until now I reasoned that by criticizing someone, I am, for example, standing up for sound principles. But when I take a closer look, what I am criticizing is often what I am doing myself – sometimes even at the exact same time I am criticizing the other.
For example, if I insist on calling someone dogmatic, then I am the pot calling the kettle black. Something in me must want to be right or else I wouldn’t be so insistent about calling someone else out on it.
Or if I snap at another person because they behaved badly, then my snapping isn’t that well-behaved either. But for some weird reason, I believe that another person’s unkindness justifies my own.
In other words, I end up being and feeling what my natural critical tendency makes me despise – I morph into what I criticize.
And here I thought it’s a passage into being and feeling better!
Isn’t that something?!
So, if there are any takers for the humongous chip that’s on my shoulder, I would loooooove to hand it off to the lowest bidder.
Brigitte K. Schneider
aka Ms. Bah Humbug
Copyright © 2022, Brigitte K. Schneider. If you wish to quote text from this article contact the author by leaving a comment.
If I could take that chip off your shoulder I gladly would. But it’s yours to bear, you’ll have to remove it yourself. I know you can do it.