Just recently, a friend of mine wrote a post called “Are you an opiniophobe?“. In this post, he talks about people who have this phobia towards opinions from other people.

Let’s face it. Not many people like opinions and even more people don’t like criticisms. Some even reject them without thinking much about them. Their brain will just keep telling them “What do they know about this? They know nothing!” or “What rights do they have to comment me like that!?” etc etc.

So they will just shut themselves out from everything be it positive or negative.

I’ll be honest with you. I used to be like that and will just shut myself out from all forms of opinions. It does sting and it’s not pleasant at all when someone just comes to you and say “whoa, your work sux big time, just give it up!” I’ve experienced it before and it can be very very demotivating. But those kind of opinions are pretty rare (they are out there somewhere, but there are rare).

What we need to do is to continue with our work (and work harder to improve ourselves). Ignore all these destructive opinions which are trying to bring you down instead of helping you. Get more constructive ones. There are still a lot of helpful people out there and they want to help you by telling you what is wrong. They have good intention.

So if you really want to be successful in the things you are doing, you must be willing to accept other people’s opinions. Learn to filter them properly but not shut them out altogether. Believe it or not, your willingness to accept other people’s opinions will dictate how far you go in your life.

When teaching a kid, you scold him for doing bad things so that he doesn’t repeat it. But you praise him if he does something good. The next thing you know, he will try to avoid doing the bad things (if he’s a good boy and not the stubborn kind), and will work harder to do the good things. This theory applies to adults too.

If I do something, I don’t expect to be praised because it’s not a normal thing to do in our Asian culture. But it would be nice if people appreciate or compliment a little for the hard work I’ve done. That will tell me I’m actually doing it right, and I will work harder to improve it. And most importantly, I know there are people who appreciate my work.

On the other hand, if all I get is complaint, complaint and complaint (or destructive comment), I might give up on it. It’s the same thing when you scold a child without telling him or her what is wrong, and what he/she should not do.

It’s okay to complaint or to scold, but you must provide a valid reason. Without a valid reason, the person might end up living in fear, and not brave enough to take up new challenges. Thus, limiting the person’s creativity and overall performance.

But compliment or praise should not be used too freely as well. If you do that, it’ll not have the same strong impact anymore.

So choose the appropriate time, compliment the person and show that you appreciate the work done. That will encourage the person to work harder and to achieve greater heights.

Or if there’s something you don’t like, give constructive comments and teach the “child” what should not be done based on your opinions.

Greetings all,

Recently some friends of mine told me my comics are not as good as before. I myself noticed that the standard of drawing SEEMS a bit better than my earlier drawings but maybe there are some other issues that I might have missed out.

I need your help to point them out for me. Here are some that I think I should improve:

• The wordings are smaller now than before. I need to make the wordings bigger. I’ll try my best as my comics are limited to the space of the blog. Anything outside width 420 will not be shown. But still, I think the wordings need to be bigger.
• Add more “background” and not just Alvin or Ken standing there.
• Avoid colors if it’s not 100% colored frame (my previous comics looked as though it is work half-done…with some colorings and some plain black n white).
• Avoid excessive shadings to make things look simpler and cleaner (not sure about this. This is suggested by 1 of my friends).
• Come out with newer jokes (this could be the most difficult part).
• Go back to basic drawings (i would try my best to avoid this if i can).

So what say you? I’m not sure how many will reply since not many visitors are dropping comments. I would really appreciate it if you can drop me some suggestions. Maybe some of the points above are not that important or I’ve missed out some very important ones. Please let me know so that I can improve. Thanks!

I’ve included a poll here if you don’t feel like telling me in the comment box. Again, really appreciate your help.

[poll=5]