To Change Or Not To Change
For the past few days, I’ve been reading comments from random anonymous strangers.
The comments have been interesting, to say the least — they’ve ranged from “you’re so full of yourself” to “you’re enough”. There’s been a smattering of critical comments amongst positive comments.
Yet for some reason, I found that the comments I remembered the most were the critical ones.
This, of course, isn’t without reason. Bad comments and its resulting negative emotion are stronger than positive comments and any emotions they invoke. As Roy Baumeister wrote in his article, “Bad Is Stronger Than Good” (quoted here from a NY Times Article):
“Bad emotions, bad parents and bad feedback have more impact than good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones.”
It’s no surprise that the comments with more negative connotations have stuck more with me than the relatively positive comments. So the question just becomes: how do you deal with it?
An obvious solution would be to just have thick skin and brush everything off. It’s what people have told me to do for years. But in my view, that’s not a solution — that’s just deflecting.
So do I take the comments wholeheartedly and change my ways to fit the expectations of these commenters? Somehow, that doesn’t seem like a solution either. Who’s to say that any of my changes will please them. More importantly, why do I have to please them in the first place?
I think by now I know that not everyone will have a positive view of me. And that’s fine. It’s natural. I don’t have a positive view of everyone around me either.
But it doesn’t mean that their criticisms are entirely invalid. Maybe I have been full of myself in the past. Maybe I have been disingenuous, or too insensitive, or too sensitive. And that’s a chance for me to look at myself and ask what I can do better.
Maybe some of these comments are unwarranted, There are even some comments that are directly contradictive. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t need to change for the better. We all can change for the better.
Comments aren’t meant to direct where your life should go — they’re meant for you to absorb and decide whether you need to change in the way that they ask you to or if you are fine as you are. Feedback is not a demand, but rather a suggestion you’re supposed to take as a lesson and learn from.
I put out this link not because I saw it from a friend, but rather I found it in an article with 100 random life tips from a blog called Putanomit. In the article, the writer wrote:
Collect feedback from everybody. Play games with close friends where you have to give each other constructive criticism and ways to improve. Collect anonymous feedback from internet strangers on Admonymous.
When you put yourself at the mercy of comments from random strangers, there’s bound to be comments you never expected. But it’s from those comments that you question yourself and learn the most.
I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to write some feedback. I’ve been very grateful to get so many positive comments about my writing, and it’s a large reason why I decided to write tonight. It’s nice to know that there are people out there who believe in you, and maybe I need to believe in myself a little more.
For people reading this who feel I may have wronged them, I’d like to apologize. I know I’ve treated people badly, that I’m not a kind person as consistently as I’d like to be. If you would like to tell me how I wronged you, I’ll be happy to apologize directly.
I know I need to have thicker skin. But for now, I’m happy to absorb as much as I can, and learn to become a better person, bit by bit.
