Preach and criticize

It is easy to criticize others. It is even easier to preach things to people. But when it comes to facing the criticism by others most of us choose to detract, deride or verbally attack the critic himself. In that process we fail to assess if the criticism were justified and worthy of positive attention otherwise known as constructive criticism. The case with the act of preaching is even more noteworthy: many of us have developed the habit of preaching others while in reality we ourselves fail to follow them; and knowing fully that there is little prospect of the listeners following the supposedly noble directions included in the preaching.
This must be why the few people who have engaged on changing themselves rather than criticizing others and applied simple and reasonable notions of greatness and altruism in their personal lives have rosen very high in the society. M. K. Gandhi is probably the best example of such a great person who had no extraordinary idea or theory to guide him and nor did he propose any sophisticated set of norms to be followed in order to change the society for the better. What he did was that while the others kept preaching their ideas and values of truthfulness, frugality and determination not to tolerate injustice, he applied those universally accepted values in his life. And that appealed the masses so much that he no longer had to develop any complicated set of theories.
The question now is: why do we keep criticizing others while there is little prospect of positive impact of the criticism and we ourselves are too feeble-hearted to face similar kind of criticisms? Also, why do we keep preaching things to others knowing well the futility of the act? One explanation can be that we are just the learned hypocrites: we want to hide our weaknesses by pointing those of the others. Secondly, we prefer the easier path whenever there is a choice; whatever the long term outcome. By avoiding consideration of the just criticisms, we keep postponing the face off between our real self and the self that is projected to the society. And the wealth, power and fame go a long way in assisting us in that act of postponing, making it possible to do so throughout our life-times.
And finally the act of preaching others may be the result of the attempt of our subconscious mind to make up for all that good we fail to do or achieve in life by prompting the others to do so. At worst, it could have been used as a propaganda tool to some end, often as a substitute for hard work in order to get fame and occasionally the wealth and power.