Mr. Carnegie, an American psychologist, has told this story many times.
Many years ago, there was an additional reporter from the New York Sun in the adult education classes and model teaching sessions I was conducting. He showed me no mercy and constantly attacked my work and me. I was angry and considered this a great insult that I could not tolerate. I immediately called Gus Titaya, the chairman of the executive committee of The Sun, and specifically asked him to publish an article that would state the truth and not mock me in this way. I was determined to ensure the wrongdoer would receive the punishment he deserved.
Now I am often ashamed of my actions at that time. I now realize that about half of the people who bought the paper would not have seen the article, half of those who did would have read it as a trivial matter and half of those who noticed the article would have forgotten all about it in a few weeks.
Carnegie thus drew an important conclusion: Although you cannot prevent others from criticizing you, you can do one important thing and decide whether you want to be disturbed by those unjust criticisms.
Do what you should do as much as possible, and then put your broken umbrella away before you let the rain of criticism run down the back of your neck.
President Roosevelt’s wife also told Carnegie her rule of thumb in the White House: The only way to avoid all criticism is to “just do what you think is right in your heart – because you’re going to be criticized anyway. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t”.
Anyone seems to have the right to criticize you, no matter what you do; you have to grasp the following principles: which is not even to listen to, which is a courtesy to deal with, and which is good for your work.
