Does anyone besides me feel that we live in a world where finding fault with others seems to be the predominant way of learning? I may be wrong but I believe we all would be better off if criticisms were voluntarily kept to a minimum. Don’t get me wrong because many times I have made what turned out to be huge mistakes in an effort to be sure one certain direction or another is not a good choice so I know learning from negative experiences can be of value. But I have also learned to put extra effort into keeping those type of experiences to a minimum because often times the most constructive choices are pleasant but hard to find and few, while the most destructive choices, in spite of being unpleasant, are easy to find and plentiful. This idea is also related to the issue of relying on a negative, punishment based system of learning, which in acts of self preservation, put no effort into positive efforts of prevention thereby forcing all affected into learning the hard, criticism filled way whether they want to or not. Unfortunately in the United States, in order to increase profit, this has become a common business model and the insanity of basing decisions on what earns the most money instead of what is the best for the most people has become more and more acceptable. Many times I have heard (and read) people from other countries ask, “why is your (USA) economy based on the idea that it is better to station an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff instead of putting a fence at the top?”
I believe that today an ounce of prevention is still worth more than a pound of cure whether people are aware of it or not. Ignorance does sometimes carry a very high price. Caveat Emptor goes for ideas you buy also.
I like the balance of criticism and praise point. I preach about all nature is balance and use examples like balance of rules vs freedom. more of one takes away from the other and vice versa. In the criticism and praise balance I would call the balance confidence where too much of one over the other causes a loss of stability or in this case confidence. Just ramblin'