Stoic Theme
Stoic Guidance for Criticism
A source-cited Stoic reflection for criticism, reputation, and the wish to be understood or admired.
Source Passages
Remove the opinion, 'I have been harmed,' and the harm is removed. Remove 'I have been harmed,' and the harm itself is gone.
Watch that you are not dyed in Caesar's purple. It happens. Keep yourself simple, good, pure, serious, free of show, a friend of justice, reverent, kind, affectionate, and strong for the work that is right.
Give yourself this present time. Those who chase fame after death forget that the people who remember them will be like the people they complain about now, and those people too will die. What is it to you if they echo this or that about you?
Guidance
Criticism hurts most when it feels like another person has been handed authority over your worth.
Marcus keeps returning worth to character. If the criticism is true, it is material for correction. If it is false, it is noise about something that was never yours to control.
The harder discipline is to examine criticism without vanity. Do not reject it because it wounds you, and do not accept it because it frightens you.
A reputation is a rumor moving through minds you do not govern. Character is what remains available when the rumor changes.
Practice
Divide the criticism into three columns: true, partly true, and not yours. Act only on the first two.
What correction would you make if no one praised you for making it?