Do you appreciate feedback? How about criticism?

Do you appreciate feedback?  Do you promote a culture of truth in your circles?  How about criticism?

Basically this is how life works:  we all have things about us that we're blind to. Not just shortcomings.  I'm talking about areas that we don't see about ourselves.  Some people can't answer questions straight.  Some people can't finish their sentences.  Some people come across as rude, angry, uninterested or cruel, and they just don't see it!  Some people come across as very anxious.  They look paranoid and get overwhelmed very easily.  We may halfheartedly pledge allegiance to some shortcoming, but in truth have no clue about this part of ourselves.

Parenthetically, or maybe not parenthetically, this blind spot will become exacerbated as the pressures of life (marriage, children, money) kick in.  When you're super stressed, overwhelmed or angry, you'll be completely blind to yourself and say and do really stupid things, that you just don't realize at the time.  At some point, these blind spots will get so bad, that they'll put all of our good virtues at risk of being lost.  

 Some common low level responses to criticism are:  anger, hurt, justification & explanation.  Not embracing the feedback will inevitably highly increase the chances of raising children with mental illness.  The extreme cases of rejecting feedback can lead to psychosis.

The only hope that we have is to truly embrace feedback.  At first, it's really hard to be told, "you sounded weird" or "did you realize how angry you look?" but once the ice is broken and you stop taking yourself so seriously, it's wonderful.  It becomes a fun game that you can play with your wife and children.  Every time that you do something off, you can be nailed on it by anyone, and you can all laugh at yourself together (isn't it wonderful to be able to laugh at yourself?).  When you're at this point, the high level response to criticism is, "Thank you for this gift."

Obviously, you want to vet the criticism, because many of the people out there who love to criticize everyone and everything are just jerks.  I'm talking about taking feedback from your family and close friends who really care about you and have a grip on reality.

The bliss of working on yourself, becoming aware of your blind spots and gaining control of the things you never thought you could control is so rewarding.  In the words of the Rebbe's calendar (Hayom Yom- 12 Sivan) "Cherish criticism, for it will place you on the true heights".

Do you know what your blind spot is?  Here's a little experiment:  try asking someone you really love and trust what your blindspot is.  Then ask them to point it out in the moment.  Don't get angry when they do, because then they'll stop and you'll be blind forever!

Shabbat Shalom, 
Rabbi Abrams

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