By:Linda Sapadin
"What's the matter with you? Look at your desk! How can you find anything in that mess?"
"What's so difficult about balancing a check book? You really ought to keep better track of your money!"
What's the big deal about cooking dinner? Just put a chicken in the oven, heat up a few veggies and dinner's ready!."
It's so easy to criticize others from
our strength.
Assuming that you're an advocate of fairness, it would be good to acknowledge that some tasks that are easy for you to do may be very difficult for others. Indeed, your ability to take care of some things may be so natural to you, that you wonder why another person "just doesn't do it."
The major reason why somebody else "just doesn't do it" is--
it's not so easy for them to do. You are skilled at what you do. You are so skilled at it that it doesn't even seem like a big deal. You keep order on your desk, doesn't everybody? You balance your checkbook,
can't anyone? You know how to cook, after all, it's not brain surgery.
If you were not judging and criticizing from your strength, you would realize how hard it is for some people to do these "simple things." You would have more empathy for their difficulties. You might sigh along with them as you picture the mess on your desk. You might laugh at yourself as you contemplate your check register. You might nod in agreement as you think about your last kitchen disaster.
What goes around comes around. No matter how knowledgeable and talented you are in some areas, there will be others in which you are quite ignorant or inept. When somebody else criticizes you about your weakness, you may respond defensively, "Oh, but those aren't important areas," or, "I don't care about those things," or "I'm too old to learn about that." You may resent their criticisms, but aren't they just doing to you what you have done to them?
One of the ways to create mutual respect in this regard is to acknowledge that what you do well is a strength, a talent. Not everyone can do as well as you in that area, even when it seems, oh so simple.
Linda Sapadin, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice who specializes in individual and family therapy as well as personal coaching. Copyright 2001
