Criticism

I don't take criticism very well, even if it's constructive. I find that a lot of my self esteem is based on what others think of me, and so to hear a negative comment of any kind tends to make me feel like a bad person. That being said, I realize that that is a flaw in myself, and something that should be worked on. And maybe that's one of the things God is trying to teach me while I am here. I have spent the majority of my working life being told by my bosses how wonderful I am, how much they love me, etc. etc. etc. It's a real shift for me to go from that, to a consistent stream of some kind of criticism or another. This does not mean it is bad, in fact it probably means that my character just needs to realize  that I am not as amazing a worker as I thought I was, and therefore need to take some of my pride down a notch or two as well.

While all of this is good, it does not make it easy, or fun. I feel like there is a lot about myself, and my beliefs that I am only now beginning to understand. I feel like they are things that I thought I had dealt with, or that I did not realize as problems. I spent a lot of time in past bad situations, however, justifying to myself why I did nothing wrong. It was always the other person's fault. It was a miss-communication on their end, or they just decided that they didn't like me, or or or. I never once looked at the part that I played in everything. I was never the one at fault. I did nothing to aid in the miss-communication, or I kept to myself, so how could I have done anything wrong? Even as far back as high school, I refused to look at myself as anything but a victim. That is wrong. I am not a victim, and while the part I played might be smaller in some circumstances than in others, there was still a part that I played. Learning to accept this is probably the hardest thing of all.

Accepting it does not mean believing myself to be a bad person, or even the reason that situations went from good to bad. It does mean, however, that I am not perfect (what a shock! ;) ) and that I need to accept my short comings for what they are, instead of trying to brush them off as someone else's fault. Until I do this, I won't really begin to grow, as a person, as a friend, as a girlfriend, as an employee. Everything will always be someone else's fault, and that's not an acceptable way to view the world. Besides souring relationships, it prevents me from really getting to know people, and makes me bitter an angry at everyone, because hey, I didn't do anything, so everyone's just picking on me. If everyone's gonna pick on me, then why should I want to give anyone a chance right? It's not right, and it's not fair.

I know it won't be easy, but God help me, if I can learn to really go above and beyond people's expectations, not to make them happy, but because God calls us to do our best, then I think the rest of everything will fall into place :) and maybe I'll finally, actually stop basing so much of my self worth on other people's opinions :P.