There are many metaphors used to describe life.

Sometimes, life is described as some giant construction process: in one’s youth, the priority is (or should be) on setting a solid foundation, while middle and old age are devoted to setting the superstructure and enjoying one’s work respectively. Other times, life is described as a journey, with birth as a starting point, death as an end. Of course with the occasional hero and villain. Sometimes it’s like a book, in whose pages one writes. Or a million other things

All these metaphors have plenty of lessons to teach, and can teach some truths about different aspects of life. However, for the purposes of this essay, we will focus on one popular metaphor: life as a race. I’m not particularly sure where this metaphor takes its roots from, but it is very common among people who believe that there is an individual, definite purpose to life. Life is therefore a race, a struggle to achieve one’s life purpose. Naturally, it should be run as swiftly as possible, with as much discipline as one can muster. The aim is to simply finish in good shape, not necessarily finish ahead of any other person, and, given the individual nature of the race, the only competition is oneself.

One of the aspects of this race that is rarely mentioned, if ever, though, is the spectators.

Spectators form an important part of any race (or sport, for that matter). They cheer, watch, and, many times, they criticize.

Imagine that you are watching one of those races, and, for some reason one competitor is not doing particularly well. As a result, he is receiving plenty of criticism from the stands. People are shouting down to him from the stands. Some are cheering him, others are insulting him. Most people are trying to help him - telling him what to do, what not to do, and everything else between. However, he is giving in all his best, and there is nothing more he can do.

And then, all of a sudden, in frustration, he leaves the running course, goes up to the stands, and begins to fight with the spectators. Or explain himself to them.

That would be a very interesting scene, wouldn’t it?

Most people, upon seeing anything like this, would think the runner was stupid, or at best, naïve. Running up the stands to argue with spectators is an utter waste of his time, and should not even be considered by a normal-thinking athlete.

However, this scene is very common when transposed from metaphor to reality. Many times, we embark on a particular course of action, and upon receiving the slightest form of criticism for what we are (or are not) doing, we stop working, in order to defend, or explain ourselves.

This approach to things is problematic in a few ways.

First, you can’t do much to win many people over. Many of the people criticizing your actions are (both metaphorically and literally) spectators. They lack the context within which you operate, and therefore can only draw conclusions based on a mixture of personal bias and skimpy evidence.

You would think that if only you explained things better, if only you provided better context, if only you showed them your reasoning, they would understand, come over to your side, and stop criticizing you. However, that is usually a gross overestimation of our powers of persuasion. People do not have that kind of time, and have already made up their minds about you, and your work, anyways. No amount of explanation, no matter how well done, will change their minds. Furthermore, criticizing is a spectator sport. People do it to occupy themselves, and not necessarily to improve your work. Explaining yourself to them does you little (if any) good in the long run, except keeping them occupied.

Second, stopping one’s work in order to attend to critics betrays a lack of confidence in the ideas or principles within which one operates. Of course, the implicit assumption is that you came to your ideas and principles on justifiable grounds. You thought through whatever it is you are doing, and have sound justification for going the way you chose to. If so, you should understand that some people’s opinions will differ from your own, and be confident enough to stay the course when others do not see eye-to-eye with you.

Thirdly, it betrays a lack of self-control. Ultimately, we all want to be understood (okay, may be not all of us, but most of us at least). Having people misunderstand us is quite painful, and the itch to defend oneself is real. And so it becomes a battel between one’s idea and the critics who oppose it. Discipline in this case means that you should be able to focus on what it is you are doing, and let your work speak for itself.

Of course, this, as with most things in life, is easier said than done. Many times we still let criticism get into our heads and stop working in order to respond to it, even when we know that the best of our efforts will do nothing. Sometimes it is also the fear of becoming particularly rigid, and shut off from the outside world, never listening to any criticism at all.

This is understandable, and the point of this essay is not to say that listening to criticism is bad in and of itself.

The way to balance this tendency is to listen to criticism, but be selective about what criticism you listen to. Ideally, the criticism you should pay attention to, and possible respond to should come from:

1. People you know personally and respect (as equals or superiors)
2. People who hold some of stake in your life, business or work (bosses, significant others, etc)

This ensures not only that they have some context on the work that you do, but that they also have a significant stake in the outcome of your work (and life). And even with that, you should make sure that what they are saying is reasonable.

Of course, this should work the other way round too. If you should not stop your work in order to attend to random people’s criticism, you should not expect or require other people to stop their work to respond to your own either. This alone would make most complaining pointless – if you don’t think something is being done properly, find a way to do it yourself, instead of complaining about it.

Instead of being a spectator in other people’s races, run your own.