“Our opinion of people depends less upon what we see in them than in what they make us see in ourselves.”
–Sarah Grand
Some of us feel so threatened by the success or virtues of other people that we try to build ourselves up by tearing them down. People who have failed to succeed at what they set out to do are often critical of those who have succeeded. Seeing someone else succeed where we have failed is hard, and we may try to find fault with them when the fault might really lie with ourselves.
When we see special talents or other positive attributes that we do not possess in other people, we often become jealous. But instead of acknowledging our jealousy, we sometimes vent our disappointment with ourselves by harshly criticizing these people. Likewise, negative traits in others may remind us of our own shortcomings, and we may be overly critical of the faults of others in an attempt to minimize the significance of our own faults. In short, we tend to measure ourselves by the traits we see in others.
It is so much easier to see faults in others than to see our own. In fact, some of us are so blind to our own faults that we claim to be faultless. Of course, nobody is without fault, and there seems to be a tendency for those with the greatest personality flaws to be the least likely to recognize their own shortcomings. They seem to be incapable of stepping back and taking an honest look at themselves.
One way to recognize our faults is to make a list of all the faults we see in others and then ask ourselves which of these faults do we have, at least to some degree? If we are totally honest with ourselves, we will probably find that we have at least some of the faults that we find most distasteful in others. We may rationalize that we don’t have as big a problem as others, but if we are honest, we will see that we do have problems.
Self-improvement can be a lifelong process, and it should be the goal of everyone. But until we recognize and acknowledge our shortcomings, we can’t begin to work at self-improvement. Benjamin Franklin was a great believer in self-improvement. He made a list of his greatest faults and then worked on one of them at a time. If we use ourselves as the yardstick by which we measure improvements rather than comparing ourselves to others, we can be far more objective and more successful in meeting our goals.
So why not focus on pulling ourselves up by improving ourselves rather than by tearing other people down with our criticism? After all, we must remember that although we cannot change other people, we can change ourselves.
Think about it.
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Copyright 2024
Allen W. Smith
