Character

One thing that's been on my mind lately has to do with how people's actions often don't line up with the way they view themselves.

We think of ourselves as basically honest, for example, yet we lie. We think of ourselves as patient, but we yell at our kids. Maybe we think we're smart about relationships and even give relationship advice to other people, but we've never had a happy relationship ourselves.

You know that uncomfortable feeling you get when you've caught yourself behaving out of character? That "I can't believe I did that" moment of shame and confusion? Psychologists have a term for that: it's called "cognitive dissonance."  Cognitive dissonance is such an uncomfortable feeling, apparently, that no one can tolerate it for long. Faced with this threat to our self image, we quickly scramble to create a new explanation for why we've behaved as we have. We do it for ourselves, and on behalf of family and friends.

It's possible, of course, to just expand our understanding of what types of behavior we're capable of: "Wow, that was a really thoughtless thing I just said; I should watch that. I don't want to be that guy." Certainly it seems like the most logical approach.

But typically, that's not how we react. Instead, we tend to engage in some complex mental gymnastics called rationalization. Rationalization works like this:

"I wouldn't normally say something that rude. I must be very tired. Yeah, that's it, I'm tired and he just pushed one of my buttons. Really, he was asking for it. In fact, he should apologize to me!"

"Oops, she caught me lying! Well, okay, that's true, I did lie. But there were extenuating circumstances. I really did it for her, because she would've gotten so angry if she'd found out I was doing that thing she asked me not to do. Yeah, that's it, I was protecting her! It's not my fault she can't handle the truth. And it's just this one time. Well, this time and that time last week, but that's okay, there were extenuating circumstances then, too. It's not like I'm a liar or anything. I only lie about things that aren't important. I'm a really honest guy."

"People make such stupid decisions when it comes to relationships! They should be smart like me. Okay, so I may not have had a good relationship ever, or even had a date in years, but that's not my fault. I've just been waiting for a good man to come along. And there are no good ones! Really, when you think about it, men suck!"

One of the dangers of this kind of rationalization is that we develop bad habits. If we make excuses for bad behavior, that behavior continues. Sometimes this translates into those kinds of minor bad habits people mostly overlook, like being perpetually late, or repeatedly interrupting people. These things are irritating, sure, but they don't make you a bad person.

There's a more serious problem, though, that often attends rationalization, and that's the blame game. We blame circumstances. We blame our environments. We blame our upbringing, our past, our health. Worst of all, we blame other people.

The blame game is dangerous. When we blame other people, we're not just abdicating responsibility for our actions: we're saying the other person deserved whatever they got.

"I wouldn't have raped her if she hadn't led me on."

"I wouldn't have hit her if she didn't deserve it."

"I don't think old Fred would cheat on his wife. She must be lying. "

Most of us want to believe we're good people. So, when we behave in ways that we don't think good people behave, we have to makes excuses for it. But the world isn't divided into intrinsically good or bad people. Every person is capable of good and bad things. But it's the choices we make, day in and day out, that determine the type of people we become.

If ultimately, our character is determined by our choices, and not by how we view ourselves, doesn't it make sense that we would try to evaluate our choices objectively? Wouldn't we want to look at what our loved ones do as rationally as possible? Wouldn't we have a better chance of being the good people we want to be if we admitted to our own darker tendencies?

Well, sure we would. But sadly, people aren't usually that logical.