Seeing ourselves in others
“It will not make us better people to judge the faults of another.”
Basic Text, p.37
How easy it is to point out the faults of others! There’s a reason for this: The defects
we identify most easily in others are often the defects we are most familiar with in
our own characters. We may notice our best friend’s tendency to spend too much
money, but if we examine our own spending habits we’ll probably find the same
compulsiveness. We may decide our sponsor is much too involved in service, but find
that we haven’t spent a single weekend with our families in the past three months
because of one service commitment or another.
What we dislike in our fellows are often those things we dislike most in ourselves. We
can turn this observation to our spiritual advantage. When we are stricken with the
impulse to judge someone else, we can redirect the impulse in such a way as to
recognize our own defects more clearly. What we see will guide our actions toward
recovery and help us become emotionally healthy and happy individuals.
Just for today: I will look beyond the character defects of others and recognize my
own.