Maturity

As humans, our first reaction toward a negative comment or criticism about us is defence. This is the easiest; that is brushing off our mistakes or weak points. I won’t say it is totally bad because, dwelling on our weaknesses diminishes our confidence and makes us feel not enough and incapable even when we are capable. It is normal to get defensive upon hearing a bad or negative comment about ourselves however, pondering on these negative comments and criticisms and wondering how they can benefit us rather than brushing them off all the time sometimes determines how mature a person can be.

The body as it stands loves to be satisfied all the time no matter what. Just like the id and the ego, the body is primitive in nature; picking up fights, arguing, yelling at someone who has wronged you, eating food that tastes good in the mouth but harmful to the body all feel good at the moment they are being done when we are satisfying the needs of the body.

To be mature people, we have to learn how to tone down all these unnecessary demands of the body which will do nothing but ruin and destroy our integrity and respect we have spent years building for ourselves. The fact that a person wrongs or offends us shouldn’t make us destroy all the reputation and respect we have built for ourselves over the years by acting in a way that the body dictates to us to act since it feels right to burst out in rage or fury. A person can offend us but we should not let that same person take away our good emotions and respect as well. No matter what a person does; it will never be okay to trade our emotions when a person criticism.

A person can be good to us all their lives but might make a mistake or offend us and this will make us judge and treat this person who has been good to us all our lives as if he/she is our enemy. This is just like a very small stain in a white shirt; we notice it immediately and concentrate on that rather than all the other parts of the shirt which is white. This is the same way we treat criticisms and negative comments about ourselves.

Things are not bad in themselves till we define them as bad our negative so no comment about us is meant to destroy us even though that could be the intention of the critic; we should look at it from the point of view that, that comment is meant to make us better, an opportunity to learn something new about ourselves. Though not every comment we hear about ourselves is true, some of them are; and we have to ponder on them and find out how that comment can improve our lives.

Most of the time, there is a lesson we have to learn out of these comments or there should be some changes we have to make in our lives and these criticisms are there to guide us. When we avoid these criticisms they will appear in different forms and cause us to take a good look at our lives and make the necessary changes. We should be cautious of the people we consider their criticism; some people will complain about every little thing we do and will never appreciate our efforts.

Most comments from these people should be ignored. We do not have to change our entire lives to either please them or stop them from talking about us. Instead, when a person corrects us or makes a comment about our actions and we know in our hearts that it is true, we should take it and make the best out of that comment or criticism.