Those who criticize others aren’t bad people, they have poor time management skills

Criticizing is gratifying because it makes us feel superior, powerful, intelligent, helpful and vindicated.

It offloads our anger onto the other person and reinforces our identity as someone with high standards, which makes our ego feel safe and special.

And best of all, criticizing doesn’t require any real work on our part. All we have to do is spew our negative judgment about everyone and everything, without any kind of mirror being held up to our own behavior.

What’s not to like? Who doesn’t enjoy sticking a pin in whatever people say and consciously drain everything of its power?

I totally understand the appeal of this behavior. Criticizing is a highly attractive proposition.

But the thing that always baffled me is, where do people find the time? We live in a world where everyone is perpetually complaining about how busy they are. How they wish they had an extra few hours in the day.

Gallup did their annual study on time pressure and showed that over forty percent of working professionals say they don’t have enough time in their daily lives to do what they want to do.

And so, from a mathematical perspective, it’s amazing to me that people somehow fit criticizing into their schedules. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got shit to do. Maintaining my own sanity is already a full time job. Between journaling, meditating, exercising, working, reading, writing, pooping, showering, sleeping, walking my dog, drinking enough water and making gratitude lists, I’m not sure I would even have enough energy left to be critical of other people.

If you examined the pie chart of my life, I give so much time to the reflection on and improvement of myself, frankly, there’s no time left to criticize others.

This isn’t me bragging about being a hero because of not being critical, it’s just simple economics. There are only so many minutes in a day, and only so many neurons available for firing. May as well spend them taking care of myself than taking shots at others.

George Carlin, in his final standup special before passing away, did a hilarious bit that’s parallel to this issue. Here’s what the great comedian said:

Probably the most interesting thing you can do with your life is end it. But I don’t think I could do that, do you? I couldn’t commit suicide if my life depended on it. I just wonder, where do people find the time? Who has got time to be committing suicide? Aren’t you busy? Suicide would be way down on my list. And I’m a writer, so I could never commit suicide. I’d be too busy working on the note all goddamn year. Trying to get it just right. First draft, second draft, third revision and then a whole new ending. Finally, I’d turn it into a book proposal and have a reason to live. That wouldn’t work.

George reminds us that it all goes back to the economics of energy. Those who criticize others aren’t bad people, they have poor time management skills. Their priorities are all out of whack.

The upside is, criticism doesn’t have to be our first and only response to the world around us. We can redirect our valuable kilowatts of energy in a more meaningful direction.

My top tool for doing so is called the railroad switch. When I feel my brain making critical complaints of others, I picture myself as a locomotive conductor who has to engage the railroad switch to guide the train from one track to another. It’s that little piece of metal that ticks back and forth to assure the locomotive peacefully cruises into the beautiful open landscape, rather than hurling across a crusty unfinished bridge and into a bottomless ravine.

This visual can helps my critical brain get back on the right track, in every sense of the word. If I catch myself throwing shade on some artist I barely know, mounting an evidence campaign about why their work is trash and how they don’t deserve to be as popular as they are, I engage the railroad switch.

I redirect that energy into doing something more meaningful, like making my own art, or doing one of a dozen other meaningful activities for myself or others that are actually life giving.

Ultimately, this isn’t a criticism of criticism. I see the appeal and I’m not trying to dissuade people from feeling powerful.

But as I take stock of my own energy pie chart, I don’t see any spots left for criticizing. There are too many tasks that require my attention.

What if you gave so much time to the improvement of yourself that you had no time to criticize others?