I’m on the overcrowded subway heading across town to a high powered business meeting. Half reading a newspaper, I scantly acknowledge my fellow passengers as they brush past me and gruffly ask if the two seats my legs take up are free.
“You could afford to ask a little more nicely,” I say. “Sit over there across the aisle.”
“You’re rudely taking up a lot of room. Also, there’s vomit on those seats.”
“Vomit that was here before you, a helluva lot like my legs. Show a little respect.”
I get a lot of dirty looks when I dish out criticism to people, but I can take it. That’s one of the reasons I’m a high powered business man. You can’t go through life as a high powered business man with thin skin. You’d just spend all day picking up the broken shards of your self-esteem, haphazardly reassembling them into a jagged mess of a self image that’s just as dangerous to others as it is to you.
If you can’t take criticism properly, it’s all too easy to become a jerk. Getting hit too hard too often leaves you wandering around in fear of when the next blow will come. That fear turns into a growing anger that gets summoned almost randomly, so the tiniest of altercations can leave your head spinning with terror and rage. You lose focus that way.
Do you think big time sports heroes do that? Prize quarterbacks don’t obsess over getting tackled all day, they think about throwing touchdown passes. Skilled hockey players don’t fret over some stooge chucking a puck at their genitals, they score goals. Champion bowlers couldn’t care less about getting a gutterball, they’re too busy stuffing their faces with delicious cheese covered nachos to even start giving a damn. And they’re all winners because of it.
On the other side of that same coin is the fact that all of those sportsmen probably had some hardass coach whipping them into shape. He would probably say something like “stop throwing the ball like a girl,” or “you hit that puck like a girl,” or “girls don’t play sports.” This type of critique can be difficult to take if you’re oversensitive. So I make it a point to be receptive to suggestions, and incredibly insensitive to folks just trying to hassle me without reason.
So I boldly move forward in life, reaping the benefits of a helpful hint here and there, and telling the jerks who just wish to fill my footrest with their negative attitudes to go to hell. And they react just as they always do – they point their fingers, curse at me, and waste loads of time without even noticing the empty seats in the next cart, by all those inner city kids wearing the same color clothes and showing off their switchblades.
Take it from me – once you learn to take life’s criticisms in a positive way, you have a one way ticket to success. Then you can stretch out, relax, put your feet up and vomit wherever the hell you want.