But when I...

Some friends and relatives and even in-laws are so diligent in pointing out your flaws. They do it to a point that you feel yourself wavering from the things you believe in.

One day, you just decided to stop talking altogether and just smile and play safe so no one would criticize you again.

Then bam! Another type of something emerges. They question you for suddenly going inside your shell. They wonder why you do not seem to be yourself. They make speculations and suspect you are going through something.

They become suddenly worried that you might not be okay. Then you have no choice but to be yourself again. Then the cycle continues.

Once and for all you try to break the cycle. Either you confront them and be honest with how you feel, or become indifferent to them and do things that will quiet them down.

It's just annoying, you know. But you have to live with it because you also kind of understand.

At some point you did the same to some people. Criticizing them, saying lousy things about them, pointing out their flaws. Then suddenly when they retreated to their inner prisons, you questioned them even more.

Such is the happenings of life. The cycle is perhaps where we get to learn a lot of things. Until we master what we are deemed to do. It polishes our character until eventually we will be more matured and diplomatic in our dealings.

It is easy to be discouraged by others. But when we finally learn our strengths and weaknesses, we will be able to know what we could do in almost every situation.

One of the most challenging scenario would be when it is the spouse that constantly criticizes us. We can't simply ditch our spouses especially when we have kids of our own. Worse is when the children inherit the pointing out of flaws of others. So we should also show how to nicely rebut the criticizing wife or husband so the kids will learn how to fend for themselves when they are treated unfairly.

When we learn to change our ways, we will lessen the probability of people resigning from sharing their hearts to others. It is when we truly care that we do something good for our society.

We have to learn nice words and uplifting ones. Instead of harshly commenting or sarcastically pointing out other people's flaws, we have to do things in a way that we are of help to others build themselves up. There has to be ways on how to do things nicely. Just be pleasant as you can be.

"...but when I kept quiet, they wondered what went into me. They criticize me when I am myself, but when I just silently live my life, they probe deeper how to get me..."

I guess, people are just so hard to understand sometimes. But that's is life and we ought to understand life. Or not.

The best way then to live is to keep practicing how to be of service to others and how to be pleasant and good. If we are diligent and nice, tendency is that our criticisms will be lessened.

And yes, as they say, we shouldn't be afraid of criticisms. It may just be a way of balancing things out. Instead of getting discouraged, we should try even more. Try harder. But when our hardest doesn't seem to be enough, it's time we take it easy.

Of course, we also shouldn't make it a habit to be criticizing others. We experienced the hurtful criticisms, we should learn our lesson and not take it out on others.