Toughen Up

This week, we kick off a 4-part series examining impactful ideas from Alain de Botton’s wonderful book, The Consolations of Philosophy. A concise, humorous, and accessible introduction to the often arcane world of philosophy, Botton’s work lays out a series of practical and timeless insights for living a better life.

First up: A powerful lesson from Socrates that can help us take the sting out of criticism…

🎯 The Idea In a Nutshell:

• Criticism is hard to take, but we make it worse when we let emotion cloud our judgment.

• The real skill is learning to stay composed, not defensive or desperate to win favor.

• Criticism must be evaluated on its merits alone—not its volume, its sources, or its consequences.

• Equanimity comes when we anchor our reaction in a commitment to values and personal growth.

📝 Diving Deeper

In 399 BC, Socrates was condemned to death by the city of Athens. The official charges were impiety—refusing to recognize the gods of the state—and corrupting the youth. In reality, these were drummed-up accusations meant to silence a man whose ideas made powerful people deeply uncomfortable.

And yet, in the face of a deeply unjust verdict, Socrates remained calm. Right up to his final moments, he held fast to his composure, his commitment to reason, and his pursuit of truth. He never flinched or lashed out in anger. He didn’t grovel. Didn’t scramble to win favor or flip-flop his position. His stoicism in the face of death has become the stuff of legend.

Thankfully, it’s unlikely any of us will ever face a consequence for unpopularity even remotely as grave as Socrates did. But if he could meet such an unjust sentence with calm and composure, then surely we can learn to develop a little more backbone in the face of criticism.

Easier said than done, of course. Our aversion to criticism isn’t just born of ego; it’s a consequence of our evolutionary history, where a disagreement with the tribe could be a matter of life or death.

The stakes may not be so high in modern life, but disagreement bears pragmatic consequences all the same — a falling out with your boss or coworkers, tension in your marriage, or losing a key customer, just to name a few.

So it’s worth reminding ourselves that even when reason and rationality are on our side, there are occasions when it pays to remain flexible; but none of this detracts from the core lesson here — that there is only one dimension along which criticism should ultimately be internalized, and that is the reasoning behind it.

👉 Why it matters:

• Some criticism is valid, some is just noise.

• We can only learn to tell the difference if we get emotion out of the equation and evaluate the feedback objectively and on its merit alone.

• This process can’t spare us from the pragmatic consequences of disagreement.

• But it can fuel a commitment to our values and personal growth.

🤔 Prompts for Reflection

• What does your emotional reaction look like in the face of criticism? How might you be allowing these emotions to dictate your response?

• Are you shutting down, missing valuable opportunities for growth? Or are you compromising your values to win favor?

• What would it look like to remove the emotion and evaluate the feedback based on its merit alone?

Make today impactful,
~Jason