Discovering Your Calling Part 2: The Inevitable Criticism
Life is full of other people's opinions. I believe it's important to have different points of view from other people because it can help you further discover life, which is one of the reasons that I started this blog. The burning question I have always had, and I'm starting to figure out is this: How do you deal with opinions of people that are negative and don't believe in your vision? The simple and most frequent answer is to not worry about the criticisms of other people and rightfully so.
In this installment of Discovering Your Calling, I'd like to further explore this question by understanding, I believe, three reasons why people criticize and how society should handle it.
1. People are going to criticize your vision and calling because of their complacency and lack of drive.
In case you live under a rock, you know we have complacent people in the world we live in today. Complacent people are generally, those who are never happy and constantly complain, but are never trying to work towards creative solutions to fix their problems in life, job or whatever the case may be. Complacent people are those who know good and well they are not happy, but, they don't have the drive within themselves to find a way to make life better. I believe we all need to constantly find ways to make our lives better so that we avoid becoming complacent. Complacent people want to bring other people down who are positive and optimistic and have goals and dreams in order to make them feel better about themselves. Society has the prerogative to stop allowing complacent people to bash the dreams and goals of those who are positive. The message I'm trying to send is this: Positivity loves company. Be the optimistic person, and not the pessimist.
2. People are going to criticize your vision and calling because of greed in our society today.
I was talking to an older gentleman at work a few weeks ago, he's a nice guy, and very complimentary of me because he told me that I inspire him and his kids. He told me I look just like Kanye West, which is a cool comment I get often. I'm not after him or trying to disrespect him or anything he stands for in any way, I'm just using him as an illustration of the point I'm trying to make. Anyway, one day, we got to talking and he mentioned how he is basically self-employed. He goes on to talk about the freedom he has being self employed in the fact that he can be his own boss, and make his own schedule and not have to submit to a he said, she said deal. This gentleman begins to get on his soap box about how he is an advocate for the business field. I mentioned that my two brothers and I are all in college and I mentioned our majors. I mentioned one of my brother's major and said that he desires to get into teaching after graduation and he responded with, "Man, they don't make any money." Now, I did not become upset when this gentleman said that and this next paragraph explains why:
I'd like to share a brief excerpt from a book that I'm currently reading that was given to me at transfer student orientation at Clemson back in June titled, "This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women." I am really enjoying the book. It's full of essays from different people, including one by Dr. Ben Carson. However, one part of an essay that I read that stuck out to me and I felt was perfect for this series was written by William O. Douglas. He wrote, "These days I see America drifting from the Christian faith, acting as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation, interested in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations." Honestly, I couldn't have found a more true statement to use in this series and about our society today. We live in a society today, where unfortunately, if you don't make a ton of money doing what you do, to most people, you're irrelevant. We live in a world of mainstream media that preach, "chase the money." I'm not after anybody that does this, or likes money in general. I get it, chase the money, and let the money motivate you but, all I'm saying is, and this may sound like a cliche but, there's more to life than money. I believe you shouldn't get into something simply because you make a lot of money but you should do two things; enjoy what you do and do what is pleasing in the sight of God. You're certainly not going to reach your calling by doing something you hate, so make sure you are going to enjoy what you do because it's what God would want you to do. If we all got into that frame of mind, we wouldn't have this issue of greed that we have in society today.
3. People are going to criticize your vision and calling because we are constantly comparing ourselves to each other.
We have brought the problem of criticism on ourselves. What we all need to understand is, we are all different and blessed with different strengths and weaknesses. We need to learn to embrace those strengths and weaknesses, and use them to impact those around us to help make the world a better place to live, work, and play for future generations to come. The future generations are watching us and are counting on us to be the example so, let's do that. No one on Earth is perfect, nor will anyone ever be, so let's all learn to embrace who we are.
Criticism is inevitable. Will it end? No. However, I believe if we all would stop criticizing because of these three reasons, we would have much less of it in our world today.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this installment of Discovering Your Calling. I hope this series is impacting you and I would invite you to share on your social media and let me know how it is impacting you on my social media: Instagram and Twitter (1bstockdale) and on Facebook (Brandon Stockdale). Stay tuned for the final installment of this series titled, "Priority You"
Til next time, More Blessings and More Life to you all.
Brandon
In this installment of Discovering Your Calling, I'd like to further explore this question by understanding, I believe, three reasons why people criticize and how society should handle it.
1. People are going to criticize your vision and calling because of their complacency and lack of drive.
In case you live under a rock, you know we have complacent people in the world we live in today. Complacent people are generally, those who are never happy and constantly complain, but are never trying to work towards creative solutions to fix their problems in life, job or whatever the case may be. Complacent people are those who know good and well they are not happy, but, they don't have the drive within themselves to find a way to make life better. I believe we all need to constantly find ways to make our lives better so that we avoid becoming complacent. Complacent people want to bring other people down who are positive and optimistic and have goals and dreams in order to make them feel better about themselves. Society has the prerogative to stop allowing complacent people to bash the dreams and goals of those who are positive. The message I'm trying to send is this: Positivity loves company. Be the optimistic person, and not the pessimist.
2. People are going to criticize your vision and calling because of greed in our society today.
I was talking to an older gentleman at work a few weeks ago, he's a nice guy, and very complimentary of me because he told me that I inspire him and his kids. He told me I look just like Kanye West, which is a cool comment I get often. I'm not after him or trying to disrespect him or anything he stands for in any way, I'm just using him as an illustration of the point I'm trying to make. Anyway, one day, we got to talking and he mentioned how he is basically self-employed. He goes on to talk about the freedom he has being self employed in the fact that he can be his own boss, and make his own schedule and not have to submit to a he said, she said deal. This gentleman begins to get on his soap box about how he is an advocate for the business field. I mentioned that my two brothers and I are all in college and I mentioned our majors. I mentioned one of my brother's major and said that he desires to get into teaching after graduation and he responded with, "Man, they don't make any money." Now, I did not become upset when this gentleman said that and this next paragraph explains why:
I'd like to share a brief excerpt from a book that I'm currently reading that was given to me at transfer student orientation at Clemson back in June titled, "This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women." I am really enjoying the book. It's full of essays from different people, including one by Dr. Ben Carson. However, one part of an essay that I read that stuck out to me and I felt was perfect for this series was written by William O. Douglas. He wrote, "These days I see America drifting from the Christian faith, acting as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation, interested in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations." Honestly, I couldn't have found a more true statement to use in this series and about our society today. We live in a society today, where unfortunately, if you don't make a ton of money doing what you do, to most people, you're irrelevant. We live in a world of mainstream media that preach, "chase the money." I'm not after anybody that does this, or likes money in general. I get it, chase the money, and let the money motivate you but, all I'm saying is, and this may sound like a cliche but, there's more to life than money. I believe you shouldn't get into something simply because you make a lot of money but you should do two things; enjoy what you do and do what is pleasing in the sight of God. You're certainly not going to reach your calling by doing something you hate, so make sure you are going to enjoy what you do because it's what God would want you to do. If we all got into that frame of mind, we wouldn't have this issue of greed that we have in society today.
3. People are going to criticize your vision and calling because we are constantly comparing ourselves to each other.
We have brought the problem of criticism on ourselves. What we all need to understand is, we are all different and blessed with different strengths and weaknesses. We need to learn to embrace those strengths and weaknesses, and use them to impact those around us to help make the world a better place to live, work, and play for future generations to come. The future generations are watching us and are counting on us to be the example so, let's do that. No one on Earth is perfect, nor will anyone ever be, so let's all learn to embrace who we are.
Criticism is inevitable. Will it end? No. However, I believe if we all would stop criticizing because of these three reasons, we would have much less of it in our world today.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this installment of Discovering Your Calling. I hope this series is impacting you and I would invite you to share on your social media and let me know how it is impacting you on my social media: Instagram and Twitter (1bstockdale) and on Facebook (Brandon Stockdale). Stay tuned for the final installment of this series titled, "Priority You"
Til next time, More Blessings and More Life to you all.
Brandon
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