Introspection

It's quite easy to look at someone else and see their flaws. To point out something that's wrong that has nothing to do with yourself is far from earth shattering, but it seems that we see this happening all the time. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, I'm just saying that for many individuals it's a bit hypocritical, and I'm definitely one of them. The most prevalent example of this that I see all to often is when someone observes something so fantastically terrible and calls it out, expecting to be hoisted up on societies shoulders and hailed as a hero. There are so many terrible things occurring in the world today that I hardly think simply pointing them out is anything deserving of a medal. That's not to say it isn't necessary, just that in the times we live in, it's no longer really praise worthy. However, moving on to the main topic of this entry, taking a look at the wrong things you yourself do is a much more arduous task. Though very few are willing to admit it, we're all terrible people. No one is completely clean in this world but we all like to think that we are. I'll be the first to admit that I'm a terribly flawed human being. I don't like to think that I'm necessarily a bad person, just an individual who makes mistakes like everyone else. I don't think, however, that this should be used as an excuse or a cop out to avoid self improvement. I've done many things that I'm not proud of, in fact, I'm deeply ashamed of some of my past thoughts and actions, but that doesn't mean that I have to constantly dwell on them and beat myself down about it. That's the beautiful thing about this world, we have an infinite amount of opportunities to make mistakes, but we also have countless chances to rectify them. Now back to hypocrisy. Like I said before, at this point in our societal discourse simply pointing out injustice is no longer something worthy of drawing attention. At this point only doing something about it is worth while, but from what I can see, it seems people are far too focused on pointing out and determining blame for grave injustices rather than rectifying them. All the while, these same individuals seem to be incapable of seeing their own flaws. We are all made up of both good and evil, and if you disagree, you're quite plainly wrong. Let's look at a few examples; Bigotry, racism, homophobia, sexism, elitism. There are some examples of these things that are so flagrant that they immediately capture all of our outrage, but we're all guilty of these things from time to time. Maybe not to the same scale as certain individuals, but we're still not innocent. I'll admit that I've had chauvinistic thoughts. I'll admit that I've had discriminatory thoughts, and I'll admit that I've allowed myself to be swept up by my own emotions to be brought into a realm where poor decisions have been made. However, I've found that the best thing to do in these instances is to hit the pause button. When I catch myself, I take a moment to step back and examine where this is all coming from. I ask myself questions like "why am I thinking this way?" "what's the underlying cause of this sentiment?" "how can I mend my mental and emotional processes to push them back towards more rational thinking?" After asking myself these questions and determining some of the best answers I can gather, I try to fix myself, and at some points that's simply all that can be done. I'm not entirely sure if others do this (I know for a fact some don't, but that can't be true for every person on earth). The point that I'm trying to drive home from all of this typing is that introspection is absolutely crucial for both personal and societal growth. We all need to put ourselves underneath a magnifying glass whenever we do or say something that contradicts the ideals that we believe we stand for, if we truly wish to uphold them in our day to day lives. Again, it's easy to see the shortcomings of others, but to be able to discern and correct those within ourselves is far more noble.