😠 criticizing (beda day 11)

11. negative feedback is...

disheartening, no matter what.

i think negative feedback constructive criticism (let's use a less critical phrase) is a good thing. knowing what you've done wrong in the past usually helps you to make better choices in the future and improve upon your choices in the present. and usually, people are just trying to help.

that being said, i can't stand it. for some reason, criticism of any sort rattles me to my core. when i get tests back i glance at the score, groan internally (a lot or a little, depending on how bad it is), and stuff it into my stack of papers. then i usually don't look at it again until the night before the next test. i try to stay out of discussions on reddit and twitter. people on the internet can be pretty brutal. i tend to forget about things while in the middle of thinking about them, yet i can remember all the times i've been scolded by teachers between elementary school and high school. it's actually a surprisingly long list.

there is an exception though - i like peer editing on papers. there've been many times where advice from my friends has helped me escape the dreaded writing rut and rescue my paper from the murky depths of unoriginality. i hardly send anyone my essays nowadays, though. as i mentioned before, i wrote papers so often in my last writing class that i didn't need to worry about having to do super well on them. i haven't had peer editing sessions since my last english class and i kinda miss them...

but i know that constructive criticism is one of those things in life that you just gotta deal with. it can't always be pros, you have to face the cons too! life can be tough and sometimes there won't be any positive reinforcement to get you going...

speaking of which, let's take the strikethrough out and focus now on the flipside of constructive criticism negative feedback.

sometimes, negative feedback isn't delivered positively (shocking!!). what i mean to say is that sometimes negative feedback is delivered solely for the sake of being hurtful or offensive. and there are many people on the internet and on the streets who will unabashedly bash others with hateful comments or vitriolic messages. if you ask me, the best way to deal with such individuals is to dab on them haters ignore them and keep doing what you're doing. assuming that they're just being spiteful for the sake of it and aren't trying to help you out in anyway, who gives a frick about what they have to say? shake it off and keep up the good work. of course, i'm a very non-confrontational person so some people might want to confront their aggressors directly. plus shaking it off is easier said than done for me, because criticism stays with me indefinitely...

maybe i'm just thin-skinned. i'm trying to take things in stride more often and move past the errors i've made. it's pretty hard because i kinda define myself by my mistakes more than i should.

so yeah. negative feedback is just one of the many minor grievances of life itself. sometimes good, sometimes bad, always dismaying. so it goes.