how to deal with criticism

April 12, 2026

How Well Are You Living — A Scorecard

Most of us are grateful that the daily newsfeed doesn’t report our personal failures. You don’t get graded, as in school. Nor do your hits and misses become an object of attention as they do for professional athletes.

In my day, all Major League Baseball trading cards included a picture on the front and the player’s career statistics on the back. A slab of bubblegum inside the pack you purchased was a bonus.

Imagine such cards for all of humanity, and ratings of each individual’s life performance updated once a year:

  •      Dating Success    C+
  •      Kindness               B
  •      Work Success       D+
  •      Mood                    C
  •      Parenting              B+
  •      Weight                  A-
  •      Attractiveness       B
  •      Wealth                  C-

Sorry. No bubblegum.

Would you want to know how your fellow humans rate you?

Would you like to be informed of your marks on a challenging test?

An old friend didn’t.

When his SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) results arrived in the mail (before the internet), he tore the envelope and its contents into small pieces and threw them away without reading the scores.

I was there.

He was admitted to Northwestern University.

Each person could provide their own categories and ratings, but they wouldn’t align with the rest of the world’s categories and ratings. It’s a necessary thing, isn’t it, that others keep their beliefs about you secret most of the time.

When might you find out such things, assuming you do?

Perhaps when your parents tell you what your teacher said about you. Annual performance reviews at your job insist on communicating whether you fit. When your friend, neighbor, or spouse is angry, you might hear it in their voice.

None of these consists of the full, detailed, and unimpeachable truth.

The validity of the information depends, more or less, on its application to one situation or another, and on the other’s diplomacy, affection, disappointment, and projection of their own problems onto you.

How would you deal with the alleged exactness of a negative report? Not everyone allows themselves to admit the dirtiest bits, the most contemptible indictments.

Beyond that, you might refer to your truth as “my truth.”

Here is a thoughtful comment on the “My Truth” movement from Hungry for Authenticity

By not having a precise definition, the “my truth” movement is being true to itself. Let me explain. The whole concept of “my truth” is that everyone’s truth is relative, as in, it’s personal to them. Therefore, “my truth” is in direct opposition to objective or absolute truth. To have a clear definition would put an objective truth label on the “my truth” movement. This is contrary to what it stands for! If there were a precise definition, it would defeat the whole purpose of “my truth.” The beauty of the “my truth” movement is that it can be whatever you or I want it to be.

Is it possible to combine all the details you receive from outside and inside into perfect autobiographical accuracy?

The completion of such an endeavor, inclusive of the owner’s evolving self-perception as he ages, recasts and refines his being as a person in motion.

An identity can be understood and recognized for a time, but as time goes on, man adapts, experiences more of life, and changes, whether he recognizes the modifications as they happen.

The best that you can do is to recognize some, but not all, of those shifts and revisions.

The truth of what one is can only be approximated. Unless you have been tested in situations that require courage, taking on danger, or enlarged self-sacrifice or generosity, you have not yet explored all your possibilities.

Where does that leave most of humanity? Your friends have their own opinions, but their frankness and honesty are not always on offer.

Your superiors have theirs, but the annual review is based on a single evaluator, possibly including a small number of additional voices, and, as a result, offers a limited perspective.

Your therapist? The professional wants you to feel secure and trust him. He tries to believe in you.

His observations occur only in the office or on a screen. The shrink’s clinical experience, you hope, generates insight.

If you are fortunate, he sees you as you wish to be seen and helps you create a possible future, including a fresh, modified version of yourself.

Your spouse and children? They witness more of you than most, but not necessarily the best of you.

Who are you, then? You might only come closest to fathoming that at the end of your life.

An additional, essential question, while you still have time, is who do you want to be, and how will you recreate yourself? The answers depend, in part, on your honesty about who you are.

Self-awareness grows from the important and wise opinions of those who know you at home, from truthful friends, and from the necessity of finding work and doing it. At your best, you try to acknowledge and remedy the flaws you struggle with and build on your strengths.

And you must be aware that time is short. No one can accomplish everything; not all roads lead where you want them to. As Steve Schmidt wrote yesterday on Substack:

The use of time is highly personal.

Its apportionment is foundational to happiness, and the decisions around with whom to spend it are keystones of life.”

If you are satisfied in the end, your scorecard doesn’t count for much. The record books, full of others’ opinions and ratings of your performances, have been noted.

As to the rest, dispose of them, albeit a little later than my friend’s SAT scores.

Here is Edmund Vance Cook’s entertaining position on all of this and more. A misleading title, but otherwise to the point:

 

Did you tackle the trouble that came your way

With a resolute heart and cheerful?

Or hide your face from the light of day

With a craven soul and fearful?

 

Oh, a trouble’s a ton, or a trouble’s an ounce,

Or a trouble is what you make it,

And it isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that counts,

But only how did you take it?

 

You are beaten to earth?

Well, well, what’s that!

Come up with a smiling face.

It’s nothing against you to fall down flat, But to lie there-that’s disgrace.

 

The harder you’re thrown, why the higher you bounce

Be proud of your blackened eye!

It isn’t the fact that you’re licked that counts;

It’s how did you fight-and why?

 

And though you be done to the death, what then?

If you battled the best you could,

If you played your part in the world of men,

Why, the Critic will call it good.

 

Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,

And whether he’s slow or spry,

It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,

But only how did you die?

==========

The first image is Blurred Flowers Taken From Train at Beer Heights Light Railway by The Wub, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

Next comes Gustav Klimt’s Hymn to Joy (detail) from the Beethoven Frieze of 1902. It is sourced from Wikiart.

Finally, Children Playing on the Water Playground in Front of the Tegetthoff-Denkmal at Praterstern by Metinkalkan, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

November 16, 2013

Dealing with Online Criticism of that “Bald, Ugly, Old” Man: Me

cartoon_of_a_bold_man

You probably haven’t read anything quite like this before.

I received a comment to my blog post entitled Beautiful and Smart, But Unlucky in Love: The Reasons Why from someone named Brenda. Here is the comment in full:

You seem to really dwell on the part where women get older and lose their looks. I could even sense some anger or revenge in your words. I then realized that the bald ugly old picture of a man at the top of the article was a picture of you. Then it all made sense. I would never take any advise [advice] or criticism from an disgustingly ugly human being like yourself who claims to be a professional.

Anyway, spelling problems and missing commas aside, pretty strong words. As you might have noticed on the page that contains this post, I have had over 500,000 views of my blog, but never anything like this in response to it. Not even close. So you might wonder, how does one deal with criticism such as this?

First, although I have Brenda’s full name and email address, I have done her the favor of not posting her comment and making her a target of others. My guess is that she might possibly not be a happy soul. Anyway, most of us have enough crap in our lives without starting an email war.

I’m able to adopt this stance, in part, because I don’t take what she said too personally. Let’s look at her attack. She said that I am “bald ugly old” and that I am “a man.” It seems to me that she is right on at least three out of four! I am clearly bald and have even written a humorous blog post about that condition: Bald is Beautiful: Reflections on Hairlessness. I am also undeniably old and I am a man. On the question of ugly, I do not believe that I am Brad Pitt, but I’ll let you, dear reader, determine if I am ugly for a man of my antique age.

Not Gerald M. Stein

Not Gerald M. Stein

One of the things about beauty, in men or women, is that age tends not to improve outward physical things. Think about Robert Redford. He is now long past his heart-throb years — a man who once made women swoon. But I digress. So, yes, it is true I am not a stud-muffin. But, neither am I particularly vain, so Brenda’s remaining point — that I am ugly — isn’t a big concern either way.

Oh, but she added I am a “disgustingly ugly human being.” Has Brenda been talking with my neighbors? Seriously, her words here are so “over the line” that I think she discredits herself and reduces the strength of her entire diatribe against me.

In short, my response to this person is that it is difficult for me to take what she is saying to heart. Yes, it is intended to cause personal injury, but she doesn’t know me and she seems to have a “bee in her bonnet” for reasons I can’t possibly know, since I don’t know her either. Were someone to take issue with my posts in a more reasonable, less ad hominem fashion, then I would have to give their concerns more thought. And, if someone close to me whom I respected had criticisms, then I would definitely consider them seriously, at least to some degree.

Another helpful way to respond to Brenda is to take a rather “Zen” approach to her, using an insight from Buddhist teachings (although I’m not Buddhist). That is, to look at what I might learn from her or to find some way in which she has actually done me a service. For example, if you ever find yourself stuck in a slow-moving line of traffic, you might realize its slowness actually gives you a chance to practice being patient. Looking for “the good” tends to make you feel better than sitting and fuming.

Just so, it is pretty easy to frame what Brenda has written as something useful to me. No, I’m not at the cosmetic surgeon’s office as I write this, now that I am aware of Brenda’s delicately delivered assessment of my appearance. But, she has done me, and perhaps you, one favor.

She gave me the idea for this blog post.

—

The top image as called a Cartoon of a Man with No Hair and No Real Face by Catboi. The image of Brad Pitt is by Chris_Natt. Both are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.