I will speak ill of no man, ... and speak all the good I know of everybody

While reading How to Win Friends and Influence People (by Dale Carnegie), I decided to write a post on the very topic touched by Dale Carnegie in the first chapter, which is, NEVER CRITICIZE PEOPLE.

In our lives, we seldom stop ourselves from criticizing others, we take it as our right to judge people, and never do we pause for a minute and think about what would we have done under similar circumstances.

But wait, we are almost always keen on saying "If it were me, I would never do this and this, instead I would have done that and that." But how many times, do we really think if "that and that" would actually be our action or not. Mostly, we just say this because "that and that" seems to be the best thing to do. We say this because we already know that "this and this" didn't result in any favorable situation, and so we think that it's safe to say "I would have done that and that".

What we fail to see is that you can never understand what the other person must be going through, you can never really know what must be going through someone's mind. Because every person's actions and decisions are guided by his experiences and the way that person's mind works. Every person's experience is different from that of the other person. We all carry a baggage of lessons learnt, and this is what makes us take the decisions we take.

Our religion, Islam, teaches us not to say ill about any person. "Geebat" (saying ill about others) is a condemnable sin and all muslims are asked to refrain from it. We all have forgotten what Allah and Prophet (PBUH) taught us and now we need self-help books to teach us what has already been made clear by Islam.

There can be several reasons of why you should not say ill about others or condemn people:

1. No one likes being criticized. If you don't like being judged, why do you think someone else would be fine with it if you are the one giving the verdict.
2. We all have our own flaws. No one's perfect.
3. If everyone WAS in fact, perfect; life won't be any fun. :D

The next time you see yourself fit to judge others, just take a minute and think of all the times you were judged and how bad it made you feel.

Below I am putting some quotes from the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie:

Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person's precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.

I will speak ill of no man, ... and speak all the good I know of everybody.
~Benjamin Franklin

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.