No Action, No Criticism

When I was a child, I was a very good student at school. I always studied hard and achieved good marks, many times I scored first in the class. But when I did so, many of my friends were not able to accept it and they always thought that somehow I cheated on them. They will make up their own stories that I did not deserve it or the teacher somehow gave me the extra marks or it was my good fortune. But deep down I knew that I have worked hard to achieve the result, and so I felt bad about how some of my friends treated me. This continued over the time. And then one day I reported this thing to my father. My father heard it patiently and smiled at me when I finished.

He explained me, “Look son, listen very carefully as I am giving you the lesson for life. People will never like when you move ahead of them, when you achieve some feat that they are not able to accomplish. People will always try to drag you down or criticise you because you are not at their level, you are at a higher level. Your friends don’t like you scoring more marks and achieving high results. There is nothing new, it's a basic human nature. So, they try to drag you down so you are at the same level. It gives them a feeling of importance which is barely real. But its important how you handle the criticism. You can either feel bad and lament over it or you can move forward. The choice is yours.”

“Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”
- Aristotle

This phenomenon is also referred to as ‘tall poppy syndrome’ in which people hold back and criticise  those who are believed to have achieved high success and value. It's the metaphor for cutting down the tall poppy. The tall poppy syndrome is commonly described in Australia and New Zealand as the idea that all poppies should grow together at the same height and speed. And if one grows taller than the others, it has to be cut down to the same size as others in order to maintain the crop and ensure uniformity of the field.

"Don't be distracted by criticism. Remember, the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.”
- Zig Ziglar

So, always remember, criticism is the sign that you are moving forward, you are at a higher level of success and compared to the people around you. You can’t always avoid it, but you can ignore it and move forward.