Doing unto others as we would have done for ourselves…well, there is one thing that most people tend to do for themselves that they are often slow, reluctant and resistant to do for others: cut them some slack. Consider the historical narrative on this:

Jesus of Nazareth: “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye but not perceive the wooden beam in your own?” (Luke, 6:41, NAB)

Soren Kierkegaard: “Most people are subjective towards themselves and objective towards others, frightfully objective sometimes – but the task is precisely to be objective towards oneself and subjective towards all others.” (Works of Love)

CS Lewis: “…It is no good passing this over with some vague, general admission such as, ‘of course, I know I have my faults.’ It is important to realize that there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives the others just that same feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is almost certainly something you don’t know about…” (Essay: The Trouble with “X”, from God in the Dock)

Psychologically, of course, it makes sense: we, after all, know what we intend to do/say; we have deep awareness of all the people and events that obstruct our good intentions. Meanwhile, we have no clue – or concertedly avoid taking notice of clues we trip over – about whatever obstacles and heartaches might underlie others’ disappointing and often frustrating behaviors. We cannot know what it is like to have the particular limitations that someone else has –anymore than they can understand the particular limitations we tote around with us.

Sometimes someone will say to me in the context of therapy how badly they feel that they are struggling with some particular issue – anxiety, or depression, for example – when (from their perspective) other people all seem to be going around, carefree and without this sort of anguish. In a country in which 20% of women and 10% of men are prescribed antidepressant medications each year, and who knows how many various prescriptions for anxiety, it hardly seems fair, to oneself or others, to assume that everyone is skipping along as carefree as they often very deliberately attempt to appear. Then there are physical pains and illnesses; the sufferings of loved ones; the anxiety for a loved one in a danger zone; grief; loneliness. These are so often invisible except for the side effects of passing crankiness or thoughtlessness or scatterbrained-ness that annoy other people who are, to quote Kierkegaard, being “objective” about others.

For the person who is suffering and, unable to see evidence of suffering in others, believes s/he is alone, it is disheartening. To be so alone in suffering…! But no one is alone in their suffering.

Not all the objective/subjective dichotomy concerns suffering. Sometimes it is about unseen limitations or differences. No doubt you have something you are not naturally good at doing. Perhaps it’s spelling, or “being handy,” or math. If you are a grownup who is doing well in life, you may have turned this into a kind of joke, or perhaps you use this as exhibit A, the evidence that you know you’re not perfect: “Oh, I know I’m far from perfect…you should see the disaster my checkbook is,” but in fact you have a certain secret pride that you do not have to bother with this, or that your flaw is so small and even borders on not being a real defect at all…and, after all, at least you are not “stupid/lazy/arrogant/whatever you perceive in someone else.” Yet unless you are in that experience, you cannot understand the frustration of someone with a brain injury who on the one hand knows that a certain skill set used to come naturally but is now a fuzzy memory and source of perpetual struggle. You cannot know what it is really like for someone with an IQ thirty points below yours to struggle through a complex and fast-paced world, when their processing speeds are so much slower, and you likewise cannot know what it might be like for someone with an IQ thirty points higher than yours to bear patiently with you.

Part of good psychotherapy, like good spiritual growth, is becoming aware of one’s flaws – not for the purpose of self-recrimination and useless shame, but as opportunities for growth of oneself as well as a growth in compassion for other people. The process, once begun, is the work of a lifetime.

Dr. Lori Puterbaugh, LMHC, LMFT, NCC

© 2016

Posts are for information and entertainment purposes only and should not be construed to be therapeutic advice. If you are in need of mental health assistance, please contact a licensed professional in your area.