Page 208 - Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich Full Book | Success Learned

things of life. Let us now examine human behavior when this fear affects people
in connection with the more important events of human relationship. Take for
example practically any person who has reached the age of "mental maturity"
(from 35 to 40 years of age, as a general average), and if you could read the secret
thoughts of his mind, you would find a very decided disbelief in most of the fables
taught by the majority of the dogmatists and theologians a few decades back.

Not often, however, will you find a person who has the courage to openly state his
belief on this subject. Most people will, if pressed far enough, tell a lie rather than
admit that they do not believe the stories associated with that form of religion
which held people in bondage prior to the age of scientific discovery and educa-
tion.

Why does the average person, even in this day of enlightenment, shy away from
denying his belief in the fables which were the basis of most of the religions a few
decades ago? The answer is, "because of the fear of criticism." Men and women
have been burned at the stake for daring to express disbelief in ghosts. It is no
wonder we have inherited a consciousness which makes us fear criticism. The
time was, and not so far in the past, when criticism carried severe punishments-it
still does in some countries.

The fear of criticism robs man of his initiative, destroys his power of imagination,
limits his individuality, takes away his self-reliance, and does him damage in a
hundred other ways. Parents often do their children irreparable injury by criti-
cising them. The mother of one of my boyhood chums used to punish him with
a switch almost daily, always completing the job with the statement, "You'll land
in the penitentiary before you are twenty." He was sent to a Reformatory at the
age of seventeen. Criticism is the one form of service, of which everyone has too
much. Everyone has a stock of it which is handed out, gratis, whether called for or
not. One's nearest relatives often are the worst offenders. It should be recognized
as a crime (in reality it is a crime of the worst nature), for any parent to build infe-
riority complexes in the mind of a child, through unnecessary criticism. Employ-
ers who understand human nature, get the best there is in men, not by criticism,
but by constructive suggestion. Parents may accomplish the same results with
their children. Criticism will plant FEAR in the human heart, or resentment, but
it will not build love or affection.

SYMPTOMS OF THE FEAR OF CRITICISM

This fear is almost as universal as the fear of poverty, and its effects are just as
fatal to personal achievement, mainly because this fear destroys initiative, and
discourages the use of imagination.

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NAPOLEON HILL THINK AND GROW RICH