Yesterday, I thought about the words of the 4th Century Desert Father Poemen. He said those who seek to justify themselves are lost.
Yet, that almost seems to be the reason we grew a prefrontal cortex in our brain. Do we humans think simply to justify our actions and thoughts to others and ourselves?
People see through our justifications. We lose their trust. We lose their respect.
With training and practice we can develop awareness of our tendency to self-justify our bad behavior. We can see it developing and nip it in the bud.
We then recognize we have a choice. We can ignore the act. We can decide to own it. It is our choice to behave or speak one way or another.
With further practice, we learn to decided to own our mistakes and the hurt we may have caused.
At some point in the future with practice, we can decide earlier such that we avoid many, most, all (?) of them. We have decided to be a different kind of person. One who is respectful, trustworthy. We find a calmness. No longer are we anxious about how we appear–or try to say we don’t care.
That is why I suggest that New Year’s Resolutions be replaced by defining the person we want to be and writing a picture of that person. Then over the year we become that sort of person.
Faith Venture 
Leave a Reply