I have written before about those with a bitter mindset and those who glorify their struggles, but a specific subset of these groups of people are those who offer nothing to your life other than their criticisms. These people are impossible to impress or to please and fall into the easiness of tearing down something that’s already there, rather than putting in the blood sweat and tears to build something new. This is because nothing they do themselves will ever be good enough either, but it's easy to forget this and instead internalize their criticisms as truth.

For a while, I truly believed once I conquered the things people pointed out about me, the criticisms would go away. I would show them once and for all. One of the ironically beautiful things about getting older is finding how wrong I am about a lot of things, this being one of them. The key is not to beat your flaws or insecurities to silence the critics, the key is to silence the critics by overcoming the part of you that listens to them.

Think about it, if all they have to offer is a harsh opinion with no solution, what worth does that really have? It’s like throwing all of your self-dependency on a natural disaster and then wondering why everything is a mess. The other thing to remember is that these people are very deeply hurt because while you are limited to their opinions by mere encounters, they have to live with themselves all the time. They have that voice that they frequently turn on you inside of them at all times, constantly telling them that they aren’t good enough and they never will be. There’s nothing we can do about this other than to not let it inside us.

Society has made progress in this area with all of the realism they bring to new ideals. However, there are still problems that lie in this temporary solution, which I will try to shed light on using a twist on a common proverb. If you teach a woman that the girl in the photo is edited, she will have more confidence for a moment. If you teach a woman not to compare her worth to those in the photographs, she will be confident for a lifetime. Obviously, this goes for men, too.

Of course, the root of criticism is comparison. While some criticism can be constructive, notice that it’s the type of criticism that offers a solution rather than blatantly stating that you should or should not do something a certain way. Anyone can say that – that’s easy. This is why the harshest of critics you’ll find are the ones that aren’t really doing anything – they can’t even provide their own solutions. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” Maybe so, but comparison of worth is the most ineffective form of self-abuse. The next time you feel yourself falling prey to another’s critical words, try instead to criticize their tactics toward improvement.