The importance of feedback

    One of the things that I had always believed in was to withhold the negative aspects of a person. Even when someone comes up to me and asks me what I thought of them I would highlight the positive aspects and the ones that I admired. I believed that it was not a good idea to point out flaws because I thought it wouldn’t help. My notion was that it wouldn’t help the person in any way because what I tell him/her is an assessment based on the lens through which I see the world. That lens itself might be flawed. I might bring in my personal prejudices. As a result of which the assessment could be flawed. Now everyone would agree that it is not a good idea to assess a person based on false assumptions.

    However over the last few days I feel that this philosophy has a major flaw. I noticed it when my good buddy called it bull crap.  He picked and pointed out that such an outlook would mean that people cannot grow and improve. Associations with me would be like “watching a fashion TV show”. Those were his very words!!!

    His explanation is that FTV is fun and entertaining. At the end of a couple of hours you might walk away with a smile. It was a good way to spend some time. But there was nothing meaningful. You will never remember an FTV show for the rest of your life. So if you truly want to help someone, if you want to have close meaningful relationships, if you want to grow as individuals then feedback is very important. That is one of the keys to deep meaningful relationships

    Giving feedback is like a parent bringing up a child. Sometime you have to say things that hurt the person. But you are willing to play the bad guy so that your friend might improve. You are wiling to risk getting into a persons bad books because you truly care for him or her.

     Even before this conversation happened I remember my conversation with another of my friends. She said I believe that the world is perfect, that I don’t see flaws in others, that I do not point out those flaws. Worst of all I expect her and most of my other friends to be perfect. She says, “But that is not true! The world is imperfect I am imperfect, and you will have to deal with all the imperfections.”

     So I told her “ I know that, the world is imperfect. Hell! Even I have imperfections. But I have a way of dealing with imperfections. I choose to ignore them.”

     To this she didn’t have much to say and we left the conversation at that. I went over those words and they sounded so wrong!

     Another example! I was walking with this friend of mine who told me what friendship is all about. Its about telling each other when there traits in one another that are undesirable. “If you don’t tell me, how will I know? How will I know what you like and what you dislike? Friendship is all about having the guts to speak out. It doesn’t make any sense if you cant speak out while you are with your friends.”

     Well that was a lot of information, all revolving around the same subject. Feedback!! That got me thinking… maybe the way to solve imperfections in others is to tell them. Tell them that you have a problem here. Tell them that you are saying so because they truly mean something to you. You care for them. And you want only the best for them. Maybe it’s from your perspective. Maybe it’s all-wrong!! But then that’s for them to decide. You gave them more choices. They know that you care. They know that you are concerned. There is meaning now. There is a purpose in having friends other than to have some fun. Books are not the only way to learn how to life your life. Friends and feedback definitely help!!!!