Some of us can keep a tight lip on secrets, and I am not one of those people. If something dramatic happens in my life, I always want a second opinion on it. It doesn’t feel good to gossip, but it feels needed sometimes. When the cat is out of the bag, things get curious.
It’s hard to tell someone they have an ego without someone calling you out for it. Their egotistical actions plus your complaining equal being an egoist yourself? It doesn’t make too much sense to me logically, but you can feel the tension and stress from mentioning another person’s name behind their back. It’s like they are going to hear you and attack you at times for it, or that the world is going to crumble under your feet. Plus, you literally have someone else’s name in your mouth ready to say something bad and you know what they say: “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anthing at all.”
Sometimes we gotta defend our honor. You make excuses or reasons for why whatever they said about you wasn’t true, but then from their POV they could pass a lie detector. You call someone out and then they cross-complain with their own gripes. Someone points out an error in your procedure, and then you double-down on it and ignore any criticism. Trust that I have seen it all before, but don’t because I don’t want to be held accountable for what I don’t know. The egotistical arrogance for just wanting to be right all the time.
If you admit you’re wrong, is that enough?
If I was hurt by their actions, can I talk down on their reputation?
If I just don’t like them for some reason or another, is it okay to tarnish their mood because they ruin mine daily?
These are the kinds of questions you ask a clergyman in confession or something, but just remember that justifying yourself doesn’t make you right. We don’t determine what is right and wrong, but we can choose to follow one path or the other. We can’t always predict who is going to get hurt from what we do, but we can do something important.
We can empathize and at least see their POV. We are lucky if they provide it to us honestly, securely, and calmly. Sometimes they leave us with silence and we have to garner all that ourselves. Sometimes we hurt somebody in physically/mentally in a way that scars them for life. It can even be an accident, but sometimes we know we wanted to hurt them. It is usually because they hurt you. Some of us are weak and get hurt easily, but we should recognize that and be honest about it. Some of us should be honest and say they are too numb to feel things, so they need to be told and reminded in a logical way. We can’t blast the light on a show so that everyone is as bright as the sun, but we can shine a spotlight. The way we see the light is up to our eyes to see, our body to take us there, and our mind to make it make sense. If you are missing the point of view, find how to get there. If you are blinded by the light, don’t look directly at it or get burnt. If you are unsure what you are seeing, think if you have seen anything like it before. If all else fails, close your eyes and take a step forward.