We often deflect both our own vices and virtues onto others.
If you’re guilty of the same, take a minute to jot down all the good and bad you think and say about others. And if you’re not guilty, take a minute to jot down all the good and bad you think and say about others.
Then work toward cultivating the virtues that you see in YOURSELF even further, whilst plucking out any weeds you come across in the process. But don’t be tempted to use any weedkiller spray to accelerate the process.
Now, if you have a hard time being honest with the process, start walking around with a tiny Dictaphone in your back pocket or handbag for a whole day. Then play it back at the end of the day when you have some downtime. If what you hear on the playback isn’t exactly “music to your ears”, it’s most likely a vice that can cost you a pet, a friend, an arm, a leg or even a spouse or two… at some point in the future.
The same “record and playback” strategy can be used on people suffering with addictions and people who start talking in a different language when they get angry. Once the recording is done, “gift wrap” it and hand it to them to listen to in their own time. Then get out of the house as quickly as possible. Let them enjoy the fireworks on their own…for a change. This generally has the same effect on the mind as a car wash does to a car. So, there’s darn good chance that you’ll see a much different (and better) person the next time you see them. If you performed this “procedure” on yourself, you’ll feel good about the person you meet in the mirror…the next time you see him/her. You’ll also feel a tiny bit bad about “who” the person in the mirror “used to be”. But as Les Brown puts it “Used to bees don’t make no honey”.
Often times, we cannot see the picture when we’re superglued to the frame. It takes someone from the “outside” to show us what we’re not seeing for ourselves, but in a “noncritical way”.
