When I watch the news1, I astound myself. It’s amazing how easy it is for me to sit on my sofa and flawlessly pick apart every bad behavior I see.
“Wrong choice, person who didn’t evacuate... Next.”
“Bad move, government official who accepted bribes... Next.”
"Should NOT have juggled those fireworks like that… Next.”
But I know better. And you do, too.
It’s never just about behavior.
That’s the surface-level stuff. The tip of the iceberg. There are leagues beneath any human behavior. When we fail to look behind the behavior, our hearts become hardened. It’s why we’re often more merciful to ourselves than others. We’re more in touch with the complexities that swirl around across our own interior landscape. We know how doubled we are - we know we should be doing one thing (namely the right thing), but we end up doing another. We know how contradictory we are.
We know how hard it can be for us.
Yet we think it should be easy for them.
Motive is far more complicated than behavior.
But this is where the healing happens.
Which is a rare occurrence these days.
SUCH a good thing to remind myself - over and over again, if needed. ;)