Criticize - Alexander O'Neal

All you do is criticize - O'Neal & Johnson

‘Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.’ Aristotle. Well, that’s the famous quote and I had it quoted to me many times during my own childhood and adult life by my own Mother. And I’m sure now as I head rapidly towards sixty-four years of age, and that she is no longer here, that it was more of a cry of disappointment rather than a celebration of my life’s direction.

 

You see, we can live a lifetime of feeling that we are a disappointment, not good enough and constantly in fear of those that are meant to love us. Maybe some of it can be aligned to the draconian ancestors that nurture their prodigy until they were seven and of those before. My own grandmother was born in 1899 and her grandmother in 1815 so no wonder their Georgian and Victorian ways were projected onto myself growing up in the sixties. A time long forgotten as we know as the world has changed so much even since then.

 

Luckily that fear no longer exists as I am now the eldest member of my own families generation, and even though I can hear the words I heard as a seven-year old child part from my own lips sometimes, towards my own children one of which is six, I try as hard as I can only to enthuse and encourage rather than criticise. Children should live guilt free.

 

And if you’ve had a similar experience all that I can say is to not wait until it’s too late to express how you feel and realise that actually you’ve turned out okay and can live life free from living in fear of constant disappointment and criticism as that sucks - I know.

1,233 Marathons - 290 Ultras - 18 MDS - 10 GWR - 0 Regrets