Pulling Ourselves Up By Stepping On Others

At the beginning of the month of February, I set a goal for myself: to stop vocally criticizing other people. Then I spent the rest of the month trying to figure out why it was so hard to follow through on that goal. Obviously I knew from the beginning that I had a 'problem' with criticizing people, otherwise I wouldn't have made it a goal to stop doing it. I just wasn't prepared for how often the issue would come up day to day. I kept finding myself about to criticize someone, then stopping myself, then deciding to go ahead and say it anyway because 'this one doesn't count.'

That sounds like I was just rationalizing bad behavior, I know, but hear me out. Does it count if I'm commiserating with classmates about how I've been disappointed by a professor's teaching style? Does it count if I'm telling a friend about what a difficult time another friend has been giving me lately? What, exactly, had I meant when I made such a broad goal?

I wanted to come back here and post about how hard it was, but I couldn't because I couldn't even put my finger on what the problem was. I felt like I instinctively understood the difference between 'ok' criticism and 'bad' criticism, but I couldn't put the distinction into words.

Then, sometime last week, I happened upon a blog post called Why Being Good Sucks at obeymyblog.com* and suddenly everything made sense. You can go read the whole post if you like, but the part that's really relevant is this passage:

"If you consider yourself a “good” person, then that means other people must be “bad.” Not you. Never.

In an effort to prop yourself up as “good,” you will attempt to call out and crucify others who you believe contain the very “bad” qualities you deny in yourself. You will create enemies, point fingers, blame others and get mad. If along the way, other people join you, you can all call yourselves good and others bad – solidified in self-righteousness and in your total denial of ever doing anything bad or wrong."

When I first read it, I thought, "Yeah, that!" That's the problem! That's the reason I'm sometimes filled with guilt after I get done with a particularly satisfying rant about someone else's faults. It's not necessarily the nature or the accuracy of what I'm saying, it's my motivation in saying it. Because I've noticed that a lot of the people I most vehemently criticize are people that... how do I say this? *DEEP BREATH*

...They're people I'm scared of. They're people that intimidate me, or that I envy, or that I believe think they're better than me, which we all know is probably just The Crazy projecting itself onto others. When I find faults in those people, I shout it from the rooftops, and then I feel better about myself. Ha, I think, who's the better person NOW? But of course the joy of establishing myself as superior is immediately followed by overwhelming shame. "Good" people don't spend their time tearing other people down behind their backs. I know this. And if I have to disparage other people to make myself feel better, I'm not a good person at all. I'm just a dirty bully.

I don't want to paint myself as a monster here. I spend plenty of time doing things other than pointing out other people's faults. I have hobbies! I read books! But I think any time spent engaged in petty criticism is too much time. I'm not convinced that I did a great job meeting my personal goal for February, but I have gained some insight into why I keep doing something that invariably makes me feel like dirt. I'm hoping that in the future I can take this information and use it constructively. If I feel compelled to take someone down a notch, maybe instead I'll take a minute to ask myself: Why do I find this person so threatening in the first place? Isn't there something more productive I can do to address my own issues, instead of distracting myself by acting like a character in Mean Girls? I'd like to think so, at least. I'll let you know how it goes.

*I think I found the link to this post on twitter, through Zen Habits, which I sometimes read. With regard to Obey My Blog, I've only read the one post, so I can't yet vouch for the quality of the rest of the blog one way or another.

P.S. I know I need to come up with a goal for March, but I haven't decided on it yet, so I'll have to get back to you in the next couple of days. If you stop by and you have any suggestions, holler!