Day 137: The Plank in My Eye

Yesterday, I wrote about the difference between living from “should” and “could”. If you read it before I updated it today, you would’ve found a much more critical tone:

I have a friend who’s fluent in the language of “should”.

If you find that innocent conversations with someone frequently devolves into long tirades […]

People who live from “should” fail to realize that there’s another possibility: could.

If it sounds like I was thinking of someone in particular when writing the post, I was. I had written it after feeling frustrated listening to a friend go on a familiar rant about how the world should be different.

Combine that frustration with a complete lack of emotional regulation due to running off of four hours of sleep, and voilà! You’ve got me looking down on others.

I’ve found that when someone gets on my nerves, it’s often because they reflect a part of myself that I have trouble accepting. Selfish people bother me because I can be quite self-centered, too. Arrogant people bother me because I have an ego, too. My friend’s self-righteousness bothered me because I have plenty of that in me, too.

Before I criticize others, I want to look at myself first, because It’s almost guaranteed that I’ll find some version of what I’m bothered by within. In doing so, hopefully I can respond with kindness and humility rather than thinking that I’m different or better.

This is one of the reasons I find meditation incredibly valuable; cultivating mindfulness makes it much easier to recognize when unpleasant experiences arise because I’ve forgotten that it’s my response, not someone or something “out there”, that makes the difference. In other words, it’s the relationship to experience, not the experience itself, that matters.

It feels weird quoting the Bible when I’m not Christian, but Jesus did say some good stuff:

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

Matthew 7:3-4