Making Friends With Your Faults
Most people have bad habits. However, the attitude of people to their habits varies greatly. For example:
- Some people curse themselves saying something like “I really hate myself for smoking but I simply can’t give it up”.
- Another reaction is one of false humility: “I'm so weak. I really don't
deserve to live. I've got so many faults”. I've mentioned previously in “The
Nature of Reality” how this false humility is really a kind of arrogance.
- "It's a disease and is beyond my control."
- "It's not my fault - it's my wife/husband/children/job/the weather that drives me to smoking."
- Another reaction, which is probably typical of most people, is resignation:
“I know I shouldn't do this but there you go…”
We think of ourselves as being a unified being with clear views and direction in life. This is rarely the case. In one sense, each of us is a family with the members living in close proximity. Because we have lived with these other entities all our lives we are not usually aware of the voices that run through our head.
It is common that when people meet someone with similar traits, or reciprocal traits to themselves there is an initial empathy. After a while this harmony turns to dislike and even hate. This is true of many married couples – the habits that endeared them to each other on first meeting become the hooks to hang their arguments. For example, the woman likes the man because she says he is sensitive and not aggressive. The man likes the woman because he says she is decisive and knows what she wants. After some time, the woman complains that the man is indecisive and the man complains that the woman is domineering.
The relationship goes sour because we are living face to face with our own bad habits - a constant reminder of our faults. In a previous generation married couples who went through this phase would attempt to work through it. A marriage was considered for life and eventually, at least in many cases, the couple would work through this dislike and have a better appreciation not only of their partner but also of their own habits. Nowadays the couple will usually see this as hard work and separate.
It is important to develop a relationship with the different aspects of yourself, the destructive and the constructive aspects. You have to make friends with your bad habits and, equally, acknowledge your constructive aspects in an objective way. This is the similar to living with someone who has bad habits. You have to learn to live with them and, if possible, to love them, even with their faults. This won’t, by itself, rid you of bad habits but it will enable you see things in perspective and to become a happier person, someone who is at ease with themselves.
