This seems apropos: "For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others." - Benjamin Franklin, 81, Constitutional Convention

As a teacher, it took me a few years to realize administrators/evaluators mostly had bad or non-advice (I think I have had 8 or 9 evaluators in 15 years, and only one of them had any experience teaching my subject...and far, far less than I did). And since it is their job to give you advice, often the advice ends up being self-contradictory. They don't know what to tell you, so they tell you to do the opposite of whatever you are doing. When I was new, I would do what they say and expect it to work. When it didn't work, they would tell me to do the opposite of THAT (ie, do what I was doing in the first place). After 15 years, I've learned that I generally know much more than they do, but it is always possible anyone might have useful insight.

I programmed for 35 years. It teaches how often people make mistakes, 1 error per 10 lines of code, average. The average programmer produces 1 line of debugged documented code per day, average. That experience made me accepting of making errors, not just programming but in every aspect of life. Sometimes we make an error, selecting the wrong person, that takes years and lots of grief before we fix it.

Yes, it does. To set some context, not all criticism (of anyone, not just me) is necessarily valid, and you get criticism from people with varying degrees of competence at providing it. Some people are awful at giving criticism, others are just biased, or narrow minded, or have no standing to criticize anyone, or are just plain mean. Anyone on the receiving end of criticism has to consider whether it's valid, or if following it would actually be worse. Some people can never admit to being imperfect regardless of the validity of the criticism. So it's not an easy thing to measure. However if you dismiss all criticism, you are foolish, but no more so than if you take everything said to you to heart. Know your critics!

I don't know if it's criticism per se, but when someone tries to correct me incorrectly (in my area of expertise), it drives me up a frickin' wall. And it's not ever on an issue where there are shades of possibilities. It's just a plain fact. Someone's name. A number of something. A year of something. A definition of something. If I am telling you a basic fact, and that basic fact is in my area of expertise, and I have to tell you three times that I am correct about this...but you keep telling me you are pretty sure I am wrong...and finally I have to show you google to get you to believe me...I get pissed off. I think it has something to do with the fact that I check and double check and triple check things until they are second nature to me (I am always doubting myself until I am as certain as I can be), while others lazily declare they know things as second nature also when they clearly do not. And usually it doesn't even piss me off on the first or second time they try to "correct" me. By the third time, I am explaining how I know, how it is related logically to other things I know (and hopefully they also know), and my experience with the fact that would have to make me a complete and total moron not to know it...and they STILL insist I am wrong. But they believe google five seconds later! Ugh. ("I guess you were right. Weird." Yeah, weird that I knew what I was talking about the entire time, and you didn't.)

I guess with age comes some wisdom. I would at 80 recognize that many of the things i rejected as knowing it all would have been great for me and now I wish I had had the wisdom to have seen their value. It would be such a valuable asset to give to a young person the wisdom life has taught you. However, I do not mean you should do it as my way is the right way. What i mean is to teach the young person to not be prejudiced and to evaluate a position before dismissing it.

Probably more likely than not, but not always necessarily. I think it's usuaally a good heuristic to use, judiciously, and in context.

I take criticism a lot better than I take compliments... I’m sure that says a lot about me, ha!