Reconsider these things before “Correcting” Someone, Shall We?
One time, when i checked on my teenage brother who just entered high school doing his online class, he was arranging some of the bubble texts with a full of paragraphs on a one-slide-presentation — and was doing it with no hesitation.
Honestly, I was just stunned after seeing so many texts that he put into just one slide. I just couldn’t imagine if he had at least 10 slides — how much time did he take to finish before his friends and class got zoomed out from his presentation. And badly, it was historical lesson.
Of course, as a person who knows that presentation’s not supposed to be like that— my mouth just wanted to rant, “why is that so? Don’t put too many words into the presentation…just write the points”
I thought it is natural as an older sister — i need the urgency to tell him the ‘right thing’ because i want him to do better — and not doing the mistakes.
But, then his reaction made me thinking — is it something that “i should have done” for some reason? to correct him?
According to psychology, human’s brain has a natural tendency to be more responsive to peculiar things, negative information, or mistakes and is easily provoked to this (i add up this thing). This is why (i sum up) we like correcting others.
Back to how I responded to my brother, surely I had no mistake in it. Even I thought a lot of people would have given the same response as what I did.
Moreover, if the person we are correcting is our relatives, family, or persons who are closest to us — speaking bluntly, sometimes becomes a common thing.
But somehow, at that time — I kept silent. And suddenly this thing popped up in my head that ‘I used to be like that too, to do small mistakes until I got learned by myself’
That is, everyone has their own time to learn something.
I don’t know if it’s acceptable to most things but for certain things, yes.
Maybe because I have studied longer than him, and have graduated from college — I automatically know more and understand how to make a good presentation. But it doesn’t legitimate me to always correct him without giving myself an understanding that he’s still in the learning process and it might help him to figure out and learn things from his mistakes.
This thought made me realize that it is okay to not always correct others for certain things which they can get the lessons by themselves (unless it can harm themselves, other people, or endanger lives).
Let them go through the process and stages of learning naturally — when they go through many experiences. There is no need to immediately correct other people, especially if you do it to only make them feel that they are not good to do those things. I know that maybe sometimes, you just don’t know the intention. This is because human nature is easily provoked to correct others. It indirectly makes us feel better compared to that person.
Worse, we unconsciously like to correct others by not using words or approaches that are ethical. Sometimes, good intentions to correct other people takes result in hurting the heart of others. We certainly don’t want to do that to other people. But the truth is — it happens a lot.
Therefore, I don’t know if it will be accepted by everyone or not, in terms of not correcting others.
But from my standpoint, if it requires us to correct them. Please note the following:
- How do you correct them? does your delivery use friendly words or is it by any chance, cornering them?
- Do you correct on the right time, situation, and condition?
- Did you correct them for their progress — self-development? or do you slip the intention to show that you know better, smarter than the person you are correcting to? To what extent are your corrections acceptable and useful to that person?
- Is it your priority or responsibility to correct them?
- How much scale that they should have been corrected by you?
Maybe for correcting small mistakes, those questions make it more difficult or “too many considerations, I just want to correct a little”
But, try to be more sensitive when you want to correct someone. Of course, correcting is a good thing if we do it genuinely, with the right time, etiquette and considerations because we want their development or at least make them not doing mistakes that you know. But if the way we do is wrong, especially if the intention is peculiar, even if it’s the slightest thing you feel about— don't ever expect that our correction to them will impact the person any good — even not for ourselves.
So let’s be more aware and rethink before we correct someone.
