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Just discovered something interesting about myself: Apparently, in some corner of my psyche, I feel it's okay to get contentious with people if I'm right and they're wrong and I know it, but it's not okay if I'm wrong and just think I'm right. In other words, I hold myself up to standards of behavior based on the assumption of perfect knowledge, instead of expecting myself to do what's best based on imperfect knowledge. Awfully silly of me.
There's a reason for it, though, and I think it mostly has to do in a weird way with over-identification: I base my opinion of whether my actions were right or wrong on whether or not I feel the other person "deserved" to have me go off at them. Which of course they never really do, so logically a difference in circumstances shouldn't actually have any effect on my ability to forgive myself for doing it anyway.
But then, my ability to forgive myself for anything has always sucked; it's just interesting to see that apparently I can only do it if I can argue myself into thinking my actions were somehow justified. So what I really need is to work on the forgiveness ability so that I can let go of the need for justification, and thereby (hopefully) also become less tempted in general to come up with justifications. Or at least I think that's what it boils down to.
There's a reason for it, though, and I think it mostly has to do in a weird way with over-identification: I base my opinion of whether my actions were right or wrong on whether or not I feel the other person "deserved" to have me go off at them. Which of course they never really do, so logically a difference in circumstances shouldn't actually have any effect on my ability to forgive myself for doing it anyway.
But then, my ability to forgive myself for anything has always sucked; it's just interesting to see that apparently I can only do it if I can argue myself into thinking my actions were somehow justified. So what I really need is to work on the forgiveness ability so that I can let go of the need for justification, and thereby (hopefully) also become less tempted in general to come up with justifications. Or at least I think that's what it boils down to.
