In general, there are three ways people respond to criticism. There are those who can decouple the negative message from the deliverer and take to heart how the not so positive feeback can be used to make them better. Or you can jump to the opposite extreme, where all malice and ill intention is assumed and respond in defensiveness in all its evil grandeur. People generally fall somewhere in between the two. Or, they do the unthinkable. Taking the dumb, deaf, and blind approach, they ignore you and pretend nothing ever happened. I have been unfortunate enough to have surrounded myself with several of these latter characters.
I am ashamed to say that I spent at least the early half of my life with the proverbial boxing gloves on, ready to pounce on anyone whose shadow crossed my path in what I deemed an unpleasant way. Although the Lord has seen fit to chip away at my heart of stone, there are those who refuse to believe stone can be softened to flesh no matter how divine the intervention. So seeing as that's been the case, I've worked tirelessly to dampen my irrational anger, curb unfriendly facial retorts, and mute my response when the initial attempts at civility don't seem to work. Admittedly, I am not always successful, but thank goodness He has minimized the angry feelings to a point where I have fewer opportunities to be tested.
All that to say that these life maturing lessons have caused me to seek solace in asking questions and simply overcommunicating, somewhat against my Asian nature. Now let's tie in paragraph one. One plus two does not always equal three. It tends to equal negative one, depending on the day. But I am motivated by what I feel to be God's direction towards healthier, more open, deeper relationships. But you can't get to the solution without all the pieces of the puzzle. So I just pray the other half of these equations are willing to commit to the same.
In the meantime, I guess I'll just keep talking.
