Praise intolerance

The hardest thing to swallow is another person's praise, and that too if they are commended in our presence. The digestion goes worse if the extoled person happens to be any of our colleagues. Some teachers don't even like students admiring other teachers. They waste no time enumerating the demerits of the eulogised teacher. It's not the success of the colleague that turns us mad; it's our morbid desire to be lionised by the ones who occupy our minds. Psychology suggests that a friend's success disturbs the insecure soul more than an enemy's does.

Some teachers suffering from praise constipation downplay their students' achievements, fearing generational defeat. The students' knowledgeability fed by modernism puts them way ahead of their teachers who keep themselves stagnant. A teacher should feel proud of his disciple's surpassing him. If the student doesn't excel or isn't allowed to, it's a failure of the education system.

Some narcissist parents, instead of appreciating their children's laurels, start comparing themselves with them. Suffering from praise indigestion, they start nitpicking in their children's likes and dislikes. They fail to understand that their children are undergoing age transition and hormone imbalance. The constant presence of friction turns familial bonding sour, destroying family peace and happiness.

The due and just praise of a person is something abstract that can't be reduced by our begrudging manoeuvring. If, for the moment, we counter anybody's praise with self-concocted demerits in his success, over time, his merits and demerits will inevitably dawn upon people. At workplaces, when what is seen is deemed truth and reality, when words eclipse actions, and when recognition is divorced from merit, praise is always misplaced. When the undeserving people are eulogised for long, the deserving ones, in their weaker moments, might resort to truth speaking to bring forth the reality buried under appearance and falsehood.

Sometimes, when one's talent or success is disproportionately admired without analysing its far-reaching consequences, it might sink hollowness in one's soul. Then, he will remain hankering after the praise, and in doing so, he will push others down and behind through belittling them and devaluing their successes. To such a person, it becomes impossible to digest anyone's praise. Such morbidity leads us to remain in the tow for others' faults. Sometimes, finding no faults, we invent faults in others and decant them in people's minds in a bid to neutralise the accolades and subsequent praise.

One thing such a person must bring home to himself is that the real comparison is not with others; it's between himself today and himself yesterday. Comparing our backstage with someone's stage never proves a healthy comparison. Comparison is 'the thief of joy', says Theodore Roosevelt. Man will have to defeat himself to continue his self-growth. It will lend him mindfulness, leaving no room for comparison with others. Also, praise must be taken as elusive. If someone is praised today, the other person might also be applauded someday because heartening assurance of being recognised is there in the ecosystem. Such a milieu is far better than the one wherein none is appreciated.

People afflicted with compliment intolerance have been praised disproportionately in their childhood. Quite strangely, the child who is overly praised and the one who isn't duly applauded both crave recognition abnormally in their later age. One must always be aware of praise inflation and overpraising, which cultivate reliance on external approval. Psychologist Jim Taylor explains that children know their achievements.

The only guardrail is to remain purpose-orientated. When our performance is contingent upon external validation, the deprivation thereof will dishearten us and force us to make comparisons. However, when we perform for a purpose, the fulfilment lies in the effort itself. Striving for recognition and vying for superiority through praise are poles apart. 'I want to be excellent' speaks of constructive ambition, while 'I want to be more excellent than him' surrenders one's peace to comparison. Maturity is not the death of our ego; it's the education of our ego.