Learn To Recognize Our Flaws

Some people find it relatively easy to judge the attitudes and behaviors of those around them. So much so that, when we see someone do something that we do not like or that we consider wrong, we realize at the moment of their error. While recognizing our defects is something that usually costs us much more work.

Criticizing others means, many times, that we make a judgment of that person, quite sharply. We pigeonholed him with an adjective that is hardly going to be removed. Why do we judge so lightly? Why is it so easy for us to find the faults of others? Can we see ours just as fast?

It’s hard to recognize our flaws

Obviously, if we were able to see in ourselves all the defects that we are capable of finding in other people, it would be much easier for us to enhance our strengths, realize ourselves as people and control our attitudes. However, knowing yourself is not an easy task, because we are not taught to do it when we are little. If we were taught, it would be much easier for us to look inside ourselves and know what and who we are.

But as we grow older, we all have small emotional wounds, affective scars, painful experiences … And it is normal that we can be afraid to look inside ourselves to see what there is. But it is necessary if we want to be happy. Otherwise, we will spend our lives running away from ourselves, without accepting our innermost self and without being aware of what we really are, want and think. That is, we will never accept ourselves.

How to see ourselves?

Without a doubt, it is difficult to try to separate ourselves from our body while we are talking or doing some activity so that we can see ourselves from the outside and be able to judge ourselves objectively. Although we can try, there are other ways, a priori simpler, to analyze our behavior.

We are all human beings. This statement equates us to the same level, being all different and unique. And it defines us as not perfect beings and that, therefore, they make mistakes and make mistakes. This is why the mistakes that our fellow men make are many times similar to the ones we make.

What better way, then, to know ourselves than by observing the people around us? Can’t a conversation with someone who tells us about their experience become a lesson in ourselves?

Observe others: a mirror

Let’s take a very practical example. Imagine that we meet on the street or in the office with a person we know and with whom we have confidence, but who greets us coldly. This bothers us or, at the very least, it strange us. It can even make us feel bad, because of the indifference with which it has treated us.

We can adopt the position we mentioned at the beginning of this article. That is, to adopt a critical stance, judging him negatively. Letting our prejudices, convictions and thoughts about his attitude not allow us to see further. However, something may have happened to that person five minutes before that has affected him greatly, he may have an urgency … And his way of showing his suffering is by not being nice.

You could react exactly the same and you would not like to be labeled “rude”, “edge”, “distant”, right? Therefore, it is better not to make hasty judgments and be open to the reactions of others. Each one acts freely. We can say, then, that the best mirror that we can use to know ourselves is people. Learning to recognize our defects, therefore, happens to act from humility.