Beware the Critic Mentality

It is not the critic who counts.

Some people make stuff.

Some people spend their time criticizing those who make stuff. They sneer at people who try to build, while never daring to create something themselves.

This post is about those people, the critics.

It’s easy to tear others down. It’s harder to build a business, write a book or a song, act in a movie, or otherwise engage in the act of creating something.

It’s better to look for the good in others instead of finding all the ways in which they suck and everything they do sucks. I’m not saying that it’s never warranted to criticize someone for something they did. What I am saying is that it’s important not to fall into the critic mentality.

When coming across someone who is putting themselves out there and trying to build something new, the first instinct of those with a critic mentality is to tear that person down.

Being useful to others makes us happy. Critics would be a lot more useful if they created new things instead of complaining about those who do.

Teddy Roosevelt talked about this in a speech he gave, here’s the most relevant parts:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

…

There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who “but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier.”¹

If you liked this post, check out my substack for more.