Do you criticize?
revorad: I know exactly what you mean about the habit of criticizing being like a drug. I don't know if I can completely give up criticizing; it may not even be a good idea to do so for reasons that others have mentioned here.But after reading the Carnegie book recently, I am trying to be more tactful. Whether I change my behaviour in the long run or not, I find it is a good social experiment to carry out. Now when I disagree with someone or am tempted to criticize them for some reason, I have to think about it carefully. I don't just blurt out my first thoughts. I have definitely seen that it helps to start with a compliment or merely stating the things that we do agree upon. And then I politely pose the differences as questions, similar to what Ben Franklin suggests. It's too early for me to make any big inferences, but one thing I can say is that it certainly feels better to have pleasant conversations than heated abrupt arguments.