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Criticism.

ยท 2 min read
Ron Amosa

I started reading "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" by Mark Manson last night. I've known about this book for a while and know plenty of people who have read it.

Fear of criticism stops a great many people from doing what they want to do. If it wasn't for this fear in the way, they'd be living the life they want, enjoying the things they enjoy, and generally having less coping and behavioural issues to compensate for not being able to do what they wanted to do.

Mark explains, in a humourous way, how to live a life free of fcks randomly or stupidly given for things that really don't deserve a fck to be used on.

As with most great advice, it's only worth something in it's active form- you have to practice, build and develop this ability in order for it to be any use. It's literally no use just running in your head, knowing you shouldn't give a situation one of your f**ks and then you go and do it anyway.

A good friend gave me this advice to help with my own fear of criticism, he said "do more of the things that scare you".

The only bit I would add onto that is to then treat any feedback you get from those things, positive or negative, the same way- don't give a f*ck about them (basically).

Sure, you're grateful for the feedback, thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it, I'm sorry it sucked for you etc, but equally and the same, it doesn't "matter" to you.

And so you do more of the thing you wanted to do, because you enjoy it and it's fulfilling and you're a better, nicer, less assholey person. And you realise that's the only thing that mattered all along.