TESS CARCALDI

Good ol’ nitpicking. We all do it. Some do it WAY more than others, but we all do it. And there’s a reason why we call it “nitpicking”: it comes from the act of carefully picking and pulling out teeny, tiny nits from thousands of strands of hair (OK, gross, I know). But if you think about the connection to the way we use the word today, it makes complete sense. Nitpicking is also the act of picking and pulling out faults and errors and quirks in others, and usually the things we nitpick are extremely inconsequential to our lives. Does the way someone makes a pot of rice matter? Does the color of someone’s car matter? No–it has no effect on our lives. But sometimes, we fall into bad moods, and when in a bad mood, it’s only human nature to make us want to criticize others in order to make ourselves feel better.

But does this really make us feel better? No. Quite frankly, it just makes you feel worse and look more like an asshole.

And we’ve all been assholes before. And we’ve all experienced assholes before. It’s not fun to nitpick, and it’s not fun to be nitpicked. But something I have been consciously trying to do is to stop nitpicking and to stop responding to nitpicking. I’ve actively stopped pulling things apart and analyzing them, especially when they have no effect on my life, and I’ve actively stopped overthinking other’s analyses of the way I live my life. And honestly? I have felt infinitely better emotionally and mentally. It’s because I’m done flooding myself with unnecessary criticism, judgment, and overall negativity. I’m also done with flooding other people with the same unnecessary criticism, judgment, and overall negativity. When you stop focusing on things that are inconsequential to your life, you have more time to enjoy the things that matter. In turn, by not nitpicking others, you give them the opportunity to have a less-cluttered mind and to enjoy life more–because let’s face it: you don’t know what others are going through, so why make anyone’s day worse by nitpicking?

I guess my overall message is this: when we stop being picky assholes, so do other people. ‘Nough said.