Know Thyself! Others Do.
I graduated from the University of Rochester nearly sixty years ago. Though I’ve lost many memories of that experience, one brief episode sometimes pushes back into consciousness. I don’t remember his name, so I’ll call him “Sam.” One day Sam followed me out of a lecture hall and started talking about another student we knew whom he didn’t like. I didn’t encourage what turned out to be just a 1-2 minute encounter, but I remember that he labeled this other student “obnoxious.” What struck me, and perhaps why I remember this, is that shortly after I heard other students talk about Sam – and they called him obnoxious.
How could Sam not see he was, in others’ eyes, what he disliked about someone else? The time he spent commenting on others might been better spent looking at himself. Yet Sam was psychologically blind.
Recently, I gave my wife a gift - a sweatshirt personalized with “I Am Not Ready to Decide!” She took it with a laugh because it is an ongoing source of fun with us that she almost never decides in advance what she’ll do on a given day. Even when the day comes, I tease her that “no plan of yours is final until it’s executed!” For far too long, her behavior got to me, the ultimate planner. Finally, I saw that I wanted her to be like me even though I was attracted to her because she was so different from me. Then I remembered something I heard from noted psychologist Charlie Seashore: “all feedback is projection.” What we tell other people about how they should be is just projecting our values and beliefs onto them.
So I faulted Sam for being blind to his own behavior and found myself equally blind to mine. Sam and I are not alone. Supposedly religious people fail to see how intolerant they are; politicians tout their desire for civility while launching personal attacks on others; loud deniers of racist tendencies post snide comments or memes about African Americans or Asians on social media; spouses, partners, friends and co-workers praise thinking for yourself while oblivious to the ways that try to squelch it. We call them hypocrites, but they don’t see that in themselves.
The good news is that while we may be blind to our behavior others are not. Others understood what Sam was doing. My wife knew I was trying to make her like me. We can diminish our blind spots if we open ourselves to hearing from others and truly absorbing what they tell us. That idea is at the heart of the “Johari Window.” Not a Far-Eastern insight, it’s named after two American psychologists, Joe Luft and Harrington Ingham. Quadrant 2 in the “window” is where Sam and I found ourselves. The idea behind the Johari Window is that expanding Quadrant 1 leads to healthier relationships. We can expand it by being open to learning about ourselves from others (diminishing our blind spots) and also by revealing more of who we are (decreasing the part of ourselves we keep hidden). Both open up the possibility of a fuller life with fewer interpersonal problems.
I’d like to think that at some point Sam became aware of his tendency to label others and how it cut off their trust in him. I know that my willingness finally to hear that I needed to cherish my wife for the very things that I first loved about her has strengthened our marriage. Achieving this, of course, can be painful. No one likes to hear they’re not perfect.
The diarist, Anais Nin, observed that “we don’t see the world as it is; we see it as we are.” Our perceptions are always colored by things as small as our genes and as large as all the experiences in our lives. That diversity is the beauty of being human just as it is the danger of trying to make the world conform to who we are. Our blinders are not our destiny unless we allow them to be.
In one of my favorite films, Butterflies are Free, Goldie Hawn plays Jill, a flighty, free spirit who moves into an apartment next door to that of a young, blind man, Don, played by Edward Albert. In defending his right to live on his own against his mother’s over-protection, she observes in a flight of joyous insight that “there are none so blind as those who will not see; there are none so deaf as those who will not hear.” Yet Jill is emotionally blind and deaf, so afraid of commitment that she can’t accept she is falling in love with this man she so admires and cares about. As she bolts out the door to go with a man she doesn’t care for, Don confronts her with what she cannot see or hear about herself. Moments later she returns, finally accepting the window into herself he has given her. In that film-ending moment, she has opened herself to love and a richer life.
Photo Credit: Teras Chernus @ unsplash.com
