An Outlet For The Mind



As a blogger, I have experienced my fair share of praise and constructive criticism. I know that both are essential if I need to grow in the journey of blogging.

Most of the times I try to stay stoical. I know there will be ups and downs in every journey and it is utterly futile to get swayed by them. Looking at the positive side of things, learning from every situation that brings me down, humbling myself after every defeat and never allowing anything to go over my head - this has been my approach to life. At least, I have tried my best in keeping this approach. Sometimes I succeed, many a times I fail.

Today seems like one of those times when I failed at stoicism and allowed myself to be swayed by criticism. Today, I let a 'down' that I encountered in my life to overwhelm me. 

Since two days, I feel like my blogs have been receiving criticism which doesn't feel constructive. It feels like the person dishing out the comment took great pleasure in writing that. It feels like a personal affront.  I know it is all a game of my mind trying to show me things in a darker way which probably isn't the case. I do not know these critics personally. I have had no interaction with them apart from the comments exchanged in the blog. Yet today it feels like they took glee in tearing apart my blog. Probably the way they wrote it made me think so - at first, praise that catapulted me to high heaven and then as a postscript, a note that dashed me down to hard and unforgiving earth. Some comments feel patronizing. Some spoilers feel intentional.

To these critics, I wish I could tell them that my journey as a blogger is difficult, filled with obstacles that interrupt me every minute of the precious two hours that I get to write every day. I wish the critics could sense my desperation as they see me lose the thread of what I was writing because a chore required my immediate attention. I wish they come to know the regrets that plague me after submitting the blog, reminding me of the things that I could have written but forgot totally because a hundred things interrupted me while writing. I wish they could sense the pain that their not-so-constructive criticism gives me. I wish they would be kinder with their words.

Most of all, I wish I never get this mind-set. Because it is not healthy. Because it builds up non-existing issues in my head. Because the critics only did what they felt was right in the situation - they found something not-so-right about my blog and they informed me. Today was just one of those rare days when my mind chose to see things from a negative point of view. 

Writing this out has helped me clear my mind. The comments were bothering me and I had to find an outlet to release them from the space they had occupied in my mind. I feel better now. The critics are just critics, placing stepping-stones for me to climb higher. The comments are only for my own development. There is no exterior motive, or plotting, or any malice behind the words. Only building blocks for my journey as a blogger.

I am back to my stoical self. All is well with my world again.

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