In a sense it is always easier to call someone else out for something they have done. It's also easier to give someone else advice and tell him or her what s/he is doing wrong and how s/he can be happier. But when it comes to our own faults and flaws, it's always, for some reason, so much harder to get a handle on them.
There is great strength associated with the ability of being able to be honest with yourself. Admitting to your own faults and follies just ain't as easy as it may seem. Unless someone is really down on himself, people generally are biased toward their own abilities and actions. I think it's rooted in the concept known as self-preservation.
Even taking a true honest to goodness hard look at oneself may not cut it. Our subconscious has so many reasonable excuses prepared for why we may do something or act a certain way. And you know what? Many of those reasons could be 100% legit. See, when it's an explanation of what you have done, you are privy to all the background info. When you pass judgement on someone else, you just don't have all the facts, plain and simple. You may think you do, but bottom line, you don't.
Perhaps that is why it is easier to advise someone who is not you. There is a clear objectivity. You are not enmeshed in every aspect of the situation, so you have a clearer picture of what might help alleviate some of the stress or whatnot.
Of course, the person needs to be interested in helping himself or herself in order for you to help him or her. So here's why subjectivity is necessary. Imagine how hard it is to change yourself. Now realize how hard it is to change someone else. You really need to be in the situation to understand the pain versus the gain; it's kind of like a seesaw. We weigh things cost against benefit. Only someone experiencing the pain/gain can truly make changes.
So then what about the objectivity? Okay, so it's not really about the actual changing of the other person per se, but the objectivity of being able to clearly call him or her out on something, being the one to point out contradictions or better ways of functioning, giving advice, and pushing the person past contemplation to action.
Do you think that if we loved someone as much as we loved ourselves, we would be able to criticize them? I mean, we easily give people whom we love advice, just as we can give ourselves advice. The issue in that is the heeding of the advice. As an example, we might tell ourselves not to eat that third cookie. Whether or not we listen to that advice is another story. So even if we give ourselves advice, we generally don't brutally criticize ourselves. Even when we're feeling self-critical, we usually find excuses to explain everything. As an aside, there definitely are those who suffer from occasional (or frequent) harsh self-critical inner voices and self-destructive behaviors, but I'm speaking to the general self-loving practices of confident people with good self-efficacy.
So consensus that healthy people don't callously criticize themselves, perhaps not people they love either. On the other hand, we criticize in the name of constructive criticism when we care about someone and where we think they are headed. Does constructive criticism exist in the realm of self-criticism? Again, it's easier to objectively find fault in another.
I am beginning to think that unless someone is super self-aware and focused that to change a character trait that is greatly embedded in one's personality or situation, it takes outside help. This assistance can be from a good friend, mentor, or rabbi type. A good therapist is probably a best bet.
While subjectivity is definitely needed to work on the problem and actual generate changes, objectivity is typically necessary to point out things that the person embroiled in the issues is blinded from seeing.
No comments:
Post a Comment