I recently was having coffee with a friend when she announced that she had been doing a lot of internal reflection. She determined that she was too selfish and needed to focus on someone other than herself. During the rest of the conversation, she demanded to know why I did not pick up my phone earlier in the day when she called. Looking right at me she said that she expected me to answer whenever she called me. As I was telling her about the stress we were under in answer to a question she asked, she interrupted me and began to tell me how she was redecorating her house. Hello? Did you just not say that you were realizing how selfish you were and was going to work on it?
This all caused me to reflect deeply. How often do we go through life thinking that we are honest with ourselves? We talk about honesty with others, but what about to ourselves? Are we really that honest? If we are honest, no!
To be honest means that we would have to actually take steps toward improvement! We cannot do that. OK, I know that this sounds too sarcastic and maybe I need to reflect a little more about my honesty, but we are really like that. To change means that we have to work on it. When you go on a diet, you have to work at it, right? The same goes for our character diet. We have to evaluate, assess, plan, act, reassess, make corrections, and repeat. We hate the dieting because of it. Therefore, we hate doing it in any part of our lives.
What stops us from improving our character? Is it pride, selfishness, or just plain laziness? Maybe it is a combination of all of them. We are too busy. It is just the way we were made. I have more important things to do. It is too much work. Sound familiar? Deep down inside these might be exactly when you tell yourself. If you were honest....
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