Unless we get into the arena
In our world of social media, we have created avenues for everyone to become critics.
In our business models of hierarchy, we have separated the people making decisions from the people working to deliver them.
As Theodore Roosevelt so well pointed out, it is not the critic who counts. It is not the person in the Ivory Tower.
Unless we get into the arena, unless we are covered in the dirt and sweat at the coal face of application, what right do we have to comment or criticise?
Those who are paid exponentially greater than those who work at delivery are literally breathing different air. They have no context for the experience they expect others to deliver.
Next time we sharpen our pens to level criticism, there are two questions to consider. (I am writing my own medicine by the way.)
- Have I spent quality time in this very arena I am criticising? Recently?
- Do I take criticism, or am I simply a master at dishing it out?
Criticism and feedback from a place of experience and understanding are valuable. Everything else is a time-consuming black hole that kills energy and swallows aliveness.
If you are the person being criticised, attend only to those in the arena with you. To all the others, let them go.
Breathe beauty back into your day. Let them go.
April 28th 2018
Photo Taken April 17th 2016
