accepting criticism

this, i feel, is important to learn how to do in professional life.  i have witnessed and personally enacted many bad ways to respond to criticism, including but not limited to:  crying in public; crying in private; getting defensive in public; acting outraged in private; slinging ad hominems behind the back of the critic; pretending it doesn't matter; pretending the critic doesn't know what they're talking about (sometimes they don't, but less often than you might think).  i have also witnessed and (hopefully) personally enacted productive ways of responding to criticism, which usually involves at least pretending as though you are involved in a good faith interaction and really talking about the thing you are both talking about.  (even though you often aren't.)

in any case, i have developed a way of anticipating and responding to criticism:  assuming i have no dignity or credibility in the first place.  this altogether forecloses the possibility that i am doing my work to make myself look good or to assume some sort of persona.  instead, it allows me to actually like what i'm doing (because there's no other reason to do it) and do the work because i think it's interesting and has a place in the academic world (which may or may not benefit my credibility or dignity, but hey, that's gravy).  such a stance is far easier said than done, but i also think that once you get a critical mass (different for everyone, i'm sure) of rejections or pointed criticisms, you can achieve it.  dare to dream!

a major benefit of assuming you have no dignity is that it makes you willing to try to new things because, of course, it is possible--even likely--that you will fail.  the idea is that if you want to try something and assume you will fail, there's no pressure and you are free to enjoy the activity for its own sake.  so it is that i find myself currently engaged in new performance and athletic activities that i wouldn't have thought possible, and i'm having a blast as a result.  i am "singing" in a "band" that has "gigs," and so far the other band members seem to like my contributions.  i'm trying a new weight-lifting thing that i really like.  who knew?  but i had to try the first assuming i would make a fool of myself and the second assuming i wouldn't like it and would (again) look like a fool.  and so now i sit and await the next round of professional criticism--always ongoing anyway--and know that it is about something (job performance, some bit of writing, whatever) that i actually like doing and about which i am actually curious to hear what people say.