Oct
31
Usually I'm lazy and get the pictures for my blog from google. But the following image is legitimate, carefully clipped from my fine institution's students newspaper. I know it's kind of small, but grab your magnifying glass and just skim it. See if anything jumps out at you.
Reading the student paper is often an exercise in patience for me, but I usually persist. However, my patience has never before been tried as it was with this little gem.
My roommate happened to walk in the room as I was reading it and chose that inopportune moment to ask me how I was doing. I started into a passionate tirade, ending with "Do they even have a copy editor? Or an editor at all? What were they thinking? Was the person who write this even thinking at all?"
Jamie started laughing at me as a I kept sputtering. "Maybe you should get your verb tenses right before you start criticizing the newspaper," she said. It took me an awkward 30 seconds to catch my own error.
Why am I so terribly critical?
I hate to think it's the whole "find the flaws in others so you feel better than them" syndrome... it's so shallow, but so true, for me at least. I criticize people for trying to be cool, when I am doing the very same thing in the act of criticizing.
Also, I don't seem to have a problem criticizing things I don't value. I don't pick apart people's outfits, because I'm not a particular dresser. I don't judge people's hairstyles, because chances are they spent more time fixing their hair than I did. But when it comes to things I want to do well, like writing or speaking up front or teaching, I am uber critical.
The other day, for example, I sat in class and made a list of all the things I have learned not to do from my professor. Wow. That's about the jerkiest thing a student could do. If one of my students made a list like that about me, I would be crushed. But I even felt justified at the time. Like I was learning how to create my high standards by seeing how he fell short.
But what if I worked on my high standards by looking for what's good instead of what's wrong or lacking? I want to see goodness and light and love in the world around me. But it's like I have this caustic gland that secretes criticism, and the more it's exercised, the more acid rushes through my system, eating away at the positive hopeful parts of me.
This is not the kind of person I want to be! I don't want to have a bitter soul.
I've heard the first step to recovery is admitting your condition. Okay, check. Now...what's step 2?
I have no right to be a critic of writing but I give this a blue ribbon. I criticize people in areas that I don't value all the time... or maybe I just don't admit that I value those areas. Oh, dear.
Step 2: "We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity."
Step 3: "We made a decision to turn our will and lives over to the care of God as we understood Him."
Step 4: "We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves."
Step 5: "We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."
Step 6: "We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character."
Step 7: "We humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings." . . . . .
Unluckily for you, I happened to have a touchy-feely, therapy book next to me with all twelve steps in it.
So... yeah, another LTG moment, courtesy of blogspot.com. Should we be trying these in person again? Love ya, Miss Jehle! --flaws and all!
Step 2:
Option won: Watch Michael Jackson dance the Thriller
Option too: Eat a fatty 7-layer burito
Option Three: CALL meeeeeeow
First of all...WHEW!...the whole time I was reading the article I was super stressed because you're a genius and I was really worried I wouldn't catch the improper use of a comma or something...but then I made it to the end and I think I got it by about the third repeat.
Criticism. It seems to be bred into us...through our education, our society,...our religion. I think criticism has its usefulness but turns into an ugly monster whenever we use it to feed our own pride because through the lens of the divine, we are all at fault.
Thanks for writing about this. Let me know if you find a good step two.
I like you. I'm like you. =) Thanks for this reminder.
Amanada, I miss you. Continue being transparent. Today at church our new Pastor at the college church spoke. His talk was awesome and if you can find it on our Walla Walla site....LISTEN. But had this funny idea that maybe we should all be brining items that symbolized our struggles...with us to church. Someone might carry a gas can he said, signifying that whenever they hear gossip, they pour gasoline on it and fire it all up red hot! He gave lots of examples...and his point was that the church should be a place where we are most transparent and there is this "Woe to me, Wow to God" mentality. I loved the sermon.
Love you much amanda. ~Em
ok, so i couldn't read the article. maybe this monitor isn't very good, or my eyes are failing me, or something. so i couldn't judge and criticize along with you as much as i wanted. also, i have not seen anything turn up in my mail. but i am extremely curious at this stage.
Always go to group.*
*-Visit the family.
Hahaha! That's probably one of the best typos EVER! A little more copy editor needed, and a little less copy-paste. I'd be lying if I said I laughed all the time instead of criticizing in areas that I value. But maybe that is step two...laughing? :)
Step 2: Call Tara.
this is easy to say, but I seriously, I'm like that too.
hey amanda,
hate to break it to you, but you are not a snob...you are seriously like one of the nicest people i know. definately something i prob need to work on more than you so let me know when you come up with other steps! p.s. thanks for the postcard-it was awesome!
I think I should see this every week when our Accent comes out. And I think that Chelsea put my thoughts well. And I think that I learned something about myself from the way you described criticizing and how you (and I) double take on the things we want to be especially good at. I guess I'm always thinking people will judge me super closely so I want to be careful and catch everyone else's mistakes first or something. LaHAme. Anyway, this was a good find for me. Somehow I'd missed it in my little blog list... hope you're doing well.
Hi Amanda. I got on your blog from Gimbel's. It was so interesting and easy to relate to and I knew many of the people in your pics that I just kept reading. You are a gifted writer and a really nice person. I'm glad we got to spend some time together around graduation time. Take care of you.
Thanks for reading, Mrs. Graves! Come back any time :)
In light of your tidbit here, I wonder what you'll think of this behemoth: http://scottkabel.blogspot.com/2009/12/question-why-do-i-hate-what-i-need.html
Value, pride, sin, etc. Thanks for thinking clearly and honestly all the time.
Amanda I want to call you because you always make me laugh!