Those who can, do. Those who choose not to try, criticize.

If a visitor from another culture, or planet for that matter, turns on a TV set or logs into any of our popular social media sites they quickly learn that we’re a culture that seems to thrive on criticizing almost everything. There are hundreds of TV shows where people just sit there and criticize things. People actually get paid to criticize things. Criticism is a profession. The proliferation of professional critics really says something about us. Because, funny thing is, most people don’t like to be criticized. In fact, they abhor it. So why are we so eager to enjoy criticizing others when we hate it if it’s directed at ourselves?

I believe people embrace criticism because it’s a safe way to participate in the game of life. If you’re standing around the water cooler or campfire criticizing things, you could be considered a person who’s aware or, if you have a good vocabulary, even wise or worldly.

All of this criticism is usually directed at the brave few who are trying to create new things. The visionaries who believe that we can always get better. The most successful visionaries are those who completely ignore the critics or learn to use criticism as fuel. I’m talking about people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln and Steve Jobs. They were visionaries who were criticized heavily and without mercy by the wise and worldly types. If you’re a visionary striving to create something, learn to take criticism for what it is…absolutely nothing.