Have you ever felt, while lying in bed at night and trying to fall asleep, like you've spent the entire day being someone just a few degrees south of the person you ought to have been?
Some of my most difficult moments have been those where I have had to grapple with guilt, especially the heartbreaking regret at having been unkind or unfair to someone.
Each of those times, while I'm struggling to resolve my feelings, I wonder - why do we so often fail to rein in our tendencies towards thoughtlessness? Why is it that even the more self-aware among us often find it difficult to deflect our natural reactions to typical trigger situations?
Even with the understanding that such behaviour is most likely determined by the degree to which our conscious actions are bound to our subconscious proclivities, the relationship between our cognitive and behavioural selves is a complex one. I know that it bothers me when someone corrects me about something I already knew could be done differently. I also know that the reason it bothers me is that inherent implication that it 'should' be done a certain way - anathema to someone whose psychological bedrock is anti-establishment. I presumed that this stems from an inherent desire to be right, in turn born out of a repressed subconscious reaction to being told or feeling I am wrong. But time after time I realize that as much as I disliked being corrected, I felt far more negative when I corrected someone else.
This dissonance between what how we would like to behave and how we actually behave is most apparent within family dynamics. We find ourselves lecturing our parents at one time or another, especially with regards to the ways of things that are different from those they are used to, presumably as a means to validate our own tentative navigation of new and complex situations. We say - 'I want them to know' how to do this or that, or 'they need to learn to do' this or that. Where does this 'want' come from? Even the most heedful parents cannot help having aspirations for their children, most have no qualms about laying down then exact intentions and plans for them. 'Why' do we want the people that we love or care for to be successful, or independent, or accomplished? Why does anyone 'want' anything for someone else?
'Because they are important to us' is not enough of an answer simply because it does not hold up to logical investigation. Having grand plans for a child's future or planning a loved parent's visit to the last detail is handled by the frontal lobe or the rational brain, while the joy or love we feel when we are with them or we see them happy comes from the amygdala, or the emotional brain.
So a more appropriate answer to our previous question might be 'Because we want to feel happy' when they benefit from the consequences of their actions which your frontal lobe has suggested for them. Notice that in the first case, they are the subject, while in the second, that is us.
I often ask myself these two questions whenever I feel the urge to say something that is, in effect, an effort to correct someone or change their behaviour -
1. Why am I saying this?
2. Whose shoes am I wearing when I am saying this?
3. How does what I'm saying benefit them, and at what cost, if any?
I've realized that when I speak without asking these questions, especially the last one, I find that the emotional cost of my words often outweighs their practical benefit.
This is not to say that every time we give suggestions or constructive criticism, we are coming from a place of superiority or insensitivity. It is just to remind us to always be aware of the motivations behind our words and actions, because there is always something driving us to say the things we say. The more aware we are about our subconscious motivations, the easier we might find it to lead a healthy mental life.
