No Whining Wednesday – The Strength in Others

Welcome back to No Whining Wednesday, your (and mine!) weekly reminder not to whine, complain, or criticize for this twenty-four hour period. If you’re new to this blog or this segment, please refer to the first post HERE which explains in detail. (You can also see the other weeks we’ve done so far. Just click on the pingbacks)

Today’s reminder is all about looking for the strength in others, instead of the weaknesses:

“It is much more valuable to look for the strength in others. You can gain nothing by criticizing their imperfections.”
– Daisaku Ikeda

We have a habit of seeing only the bad in people. Every day we place judgment on others in subtle ways. Maybe we saw a blog post we didn’t agree with so we murmured under our breaths. Maybe someone bypassed us on the street and we wondered why they wore those shoes. Maybe we rolled our eyes because someone did something we thought was the wrong thing to do. Maybe an author is not winning in our eyes. Maybe he or she is losing because they aren’t doing it the way we’ve been taught it should be done. Maybe, maybe, maybe. These “maybies” add up. Sometimes they come out of our mouths. Other times they stay in our heads. Either way, consciously or subconsciously, we tend to see the negative in people first and then, only if we’ve chosen to accept the person anyway, do we see the good.

What if we could see the good first? What if instead of counting my weaknesses, you can count my strengths? What if instead of seeing what I am doing wrong, you can see what I am doing right? Today, try not to criticize people’s imperfections. Instead, look for their strengths.

“Don’t criticize what you don’t understand, son. You never walked in that man’s shoes.”
– Elvis Presley

I challenge you to list a strength you see in someone in your life in the comments section! Could be a fellow blogger, author, sister, brother, mom, friend. Anyone in your life. (You cannot talk about yourself).