By Mike Hume Courtesy Mike Hume Mike Hume
In sixth grade I couldn’t stand my saxophone instructor because he corrected my mistakes. So I quit. Growing up playing baseball, I would get angry when my father/coach reprimanded me for misplaying a ground ball, and I was secretly thankful when he no longer coached me in high school. I despised my freshman year theology teacher who would frequently mark my work with her critical red ink. She obviously had no idea what I was getting at. y roommate, Ted, has endlessly criticized my column, “Picking Splinters,” for the last three years, frequently making me wish he would get a paper cut every time he picked up THE HOYA.
I hated criticism when I was growing up, and there was a lot of it, particularly with the saxophone lessons. It made me feel worthless and under appreciated, hardly foreign reactions to this situation, but present nonetheless. I’m not sure why I responded so angrily to these critiques, viewing them as attacks rather than the constructive corrections that they were. Maybe it was teen angst, maybe it was insecurity, but whatever the reason, I couldn’t stand it.
And I knew I was making mistakes. I knew I was wrong. But part of me never wanted to acknowledge it, as though that admission would somehow damage me as a person. I wanted to be perfect and if I allowed other people to criticize me then I knew that I wasn’t.
The obvious problem with this, as I grew to understand, is that there are certain objective truths in this life. An F# isn’t a G. When the throw beats you to first base, you’re out. American Indians didn’t derive their spiritual power from peyote and power animals, no matter how many times I insisted as much in my theology paper. The use of cliches like “found their rhythm,” is not a requirement of sports writing. But what I hadn’t learned yet was that making these mistakes, and acknowledging to others that they are mistakes, didn’t make me any less of a good person.
When we grow up we traditionally look to our parents as the epitome of perfection. Keep in mind this is what we believe and not necessarily what is true. But somewhere along the line you see them mess up. Maybe your mom, who has repeatedly criticized your driving, backs into your dad’s car and then proceeds to drop the F-bomb. Or maybe you realize that your dad is utterly and completely hopeless when it comes to something like working a computer or setting up the VCR to record. Just a couple of completely random examples off the top of my head. Wink, wink.
I believe about this time I realized it was okay to cop to my mistakes, and acknowledge I was wrong in certain cases, such as with the peyote.
Acknowledging, and being comfortable with criticism, or being rejected or told no (I’ve had a bit of experience with the latter two), does build character. As cliched as it sounds, I found that once I was comfortable accepting criticism, I took a lot more chances both socially and in my work.
As Senior Sports Editor for two semesters, I attempted to incorporate a new feature called Gurus, where students could write in and have their questions and opinions answered in a humorous fashion by two mysterious sages, namely myself and Ted.
Everyone – roommates, fellow editors, writers, friends, parents – criticized the living bejesus out of Gurus from the first italicized question to the last comedic photo caption. I dropped Gurus after three editions. And, while I’m still convinced that Gurus brought an irreplaceable comedic quality to the paper, I was okay with dropping it, since I am probably the only one who thinks this.
I still get criticized. I still don’t like it. But one thing has changed from the kid whose music instructor would chastise him for playing offbeat to the guy who is about to receive a degree in three weeks’ time. Today I realize that without the criticism of these people I so “detested,” I’d still be botching grounders and writing C-caliber theology papers.
And now I find myself completely indebted to these people with gratitude.
Mike Hume is a senior in the College and a former Senior Sports Editor and Features Editor.