Steps out of critical attitudes

By E Stanley Jones

When we get critical of people and surroundings, we end in our own frustration. It is not a way out. A little girl of six felt she wanted to get away from her family, everything was wrong. So when she said she wanted to go away, her mother helped her pack her suitcase and then bade her good-by at the door. Then she kept an eye on her out of the corner of the window. Jane went to the corner, sat on the curb for a long time, apparently in deep thought, then came back and knocked at the door. Her mother opened the door and said, “Why Jane, I thought you were going to go away and leave home.” “Yes,” said Jane slowly, “but I didn’t know where to go.” Her negative, critical, run-away attitudes landed her at zero.

How are we to get out of critical, negative attitudes?

1.         Make up your mind that the way of criticism is a road with a dead end. Nobody was ever changed by criticism, least of all by a nagging criticism. Nobody is changed except the critic—he is changed into a critical person.

2.         Surrender the way of criticism as a way of life. Give it up as deliberately as you would discard a torn, spotted coat. For a critical personality is a shabby personality.

3.         Begin to look for good in people and circumstances. As you see and express the good, a good spirit will take possession of you.

4.         Don’t criticize a person until you have projected yourself into his situation and see things from his standpoint. Here is a Red Indian prayer: “O Great Sprit, maker of men, forbids that I should judge any man until I have walked two moons in his moccasins.”

5.              Work out a positive technique of relationships based on the positive. A couple of eighty-nine told of an eighty-year romance and how they were still in love with each other. Asked the secret, they replied: (a) A man and his wife should be considerate of each other; (b) practice the Golden Rule in everyday life; (c) count ten before you begin bawling out your mate—and then give a kiss instead.

“Treat one another with the same spirit as you experience in Christ Jesus”…Phil. 2:5