>Instead of Criticizing Someone’s Success, why not learn something valuable from it?

Instead of criticizing someone's success: why not learn something valuable from it?
Ernie Zelinsky, 101 Really Important Things You Already Know but keep forgetting

It's interesting and somewhat dismaying how many people will look up to anyone who wins a multi million- dollar lottery- but will deride anyone who has worked either hard or smart to attain prosperity and real success. Jules Renard put this in proper perspective, however

American composer Irving Berlin, who led the evolution of the popular song from the early ragtime and jazz eras through the golden age of musicals, wrote more than 800 pop songs. One day Berlin gave a young composer named Cole Porter counseling on how to become more successful in the music business. "Listen kid, take my advice," Berlin warned Porter,

No doubt Cole Porter took Irving Berlin's advice seriously given the huge success that Porter himself achieved as a composer. What Berlin told Porter is great advice for all of us. Instead of criticizing someone's success, why not learn something valuable from it? Whether it's a highly successful song, painting, or computer, we should be admiring and blessing it. Even more important, we should be learning why it is so successful so that we can adapt its positive features into whatever product or service we are ourselves trying to sell to the world.

Anyone who has been a success can teach you a lot. If you resent successful people, chances are you will never be successful yourself. How could you? You would have to become someone whom you resent. Thus, you will always set yourself up, consciously or unconsciously, so that you don't succeed. What's more, you will have a lot of great excuses- but no good reasons- why you have not attained what success means to you.

The core of the matter is that any misfit can criticize and most do. The universe, however, has ingenious ways of keeping pathological critics in their rightful place. It makes them incredibly miserable inside. Moreover, the universe ensures that real success eludes these people for their entire lives. Oh sure, they become successful critics, but that's about all. The last time I checked, there was no Nobel Prize awarded for criticism and I have yet to see a statue made in honor of a critic.

It is a mistake when we make successful people wrong for their achievements. No matter how deserving we are, we can't truly enjoy the things we desperately want until we allow others- even people we dislike- to have the same things just as readily as we would like. Instead of getting you on the road to Success City, criticizing successful people will get you headed full tilt in the opposite direction toward where the misfits of this world hang out. It's called Loserville. So where would you like to hang out? Loserville or Success City?

If you choose Success City as the place you want to be, you must learn not only to avoid criticizing successful people, but also to disregard the negative comments made about you. The more successful you become, criticism you will receive. Truly successful people get bashed a lot, mainly by the lazy, jealous, and broke, who apparently have nothing better to do with their time, aside from watching a lot of TV.

Successful people, however, are used to- and spiritually above- the misconceptions, criticism, and untrue statements that negative people utter about anybody and everybody who is successful. Unkind words will even motivate certain already successful people to greater heights.

Above all, keep in mind that avoiding criticism is an unattainable task- even to the most renowned people in this world- because the most degenerate of misfits can easily criticize the greatest of accomplishments ever pulled off by humankind. And, of course, they do. The silver lining is that receiving a lot of criticism from the misfits of this world is a good sign that you are well on your way to success- or that you have already arrived!

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