Back in college a friend asked me to edit a book she was working on. I was nervous. What did editing really mean? I was pretty good at grammar, and decent at spelling, but was she expecting me to improve her message? I remember sitting down with a red pencil on a mission to find fault. If more than a couple of paragraphs slipped by without me marking it I believed I was shirking my responsibility. It did not seem like part of my job description to say anything affirming, only what was wrong. 

I doubt my comments did much to help her, and frankly I don't consider myself particularly gifted in that regard. Who am I to know better than the writer what they want to say? I can give my opinion but even that is a slender slice of her or his entire audience. 

The other day a friend mentioned that there is a daily supply of feedback from those he and his coworkers are trying to serve, and it is disproportionately negative. While private interactions may lead to useful understanding, the public forum  of social media such criticism often takes seems to simply do damage. Also there is a line between reacting, which requires less consideration than reflex, and response. The latter invites genuine thought, and perhaps a potential for dialogue.

This person has my respect, and the notion that his team is under continuous scrutiny left me feeling sad. Isn't it enough to show up every day with the intention of an honest day's commitment, without the added resistance of being harangued? Who hired any of us to edit the words and actions of anyone else? Well, maybe actual proofreaders, English professors, and prosecuting attorneys. 

For me the stone inside critiquing someone else, like the pit inside a fleshy peach, is the presumption that I know your life better than you do. How much more forward thinking would it be to bury those comments in the ground, and share instead the sweet deliciousness of what they do well? What green sprouts might emerge from the dirt a year later, giving me a chance to better appreciate why you made the choices you did? 

Fortunately even I don't have to believe everything I think.