Socrates is credited with the insightful quote: Know thyself.
Aristotle offered this sage advice: Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
What I can attest to is that when we invest in getting to know ourselves on an honest, deeper level, we do begin to experience other people in a revelational new way. How curious it is that the one person we spend all of our lives with, is the one we know so little about.
We often observe others with a very discerning eye — and might even say out loud “why in the world would they do that?” In these moments, we are using our own personal filters to assess what is a good or bad decision.
What we often miss in these mini moments of decisive judgment is that what other people do makes sense to them. At the very least, in that moment, it makes sense. Maybe later, they will have regrets.
We accumulate a bushel basket of one-offs like this – when we capture a snapshot of a choice or action someone made. We don’t get to see the whole reel that encompasses cause and effect, what they liked, what they learned, if they changed.
Imagine that you see a stranger blowing their stack at a store clerk over a return policy. Depending on your own mood that day, you might sympathize with that frustrated customer, or you might think they are pulling a fast one, trying to bend the rules to suit their own needs. However you are feeling in that moment actually changes the lens of how you see it and how you judge it.
Have you been there, done that?
Have you been the irritated customer with a product you no longer wanted, and it was three days past the return policy? Have you been the unhappy but reasonable customer who follows the rules, offers the unwanted item to a friend and then buys the produce you prefer?
Dr. Ellen Langer, author of the Mindful Body, reminds us that there is a lot of variability at play for each and every one of us – every single day. Some days you are the windshield, some days you are the bug.
Dr. Langer also reminds us that what people do makes sense to them – in that moment. While we are quick to judge others, we rarely apply this same awareness to ourselves.
This is called fundamental attribution error. We give ourselves a pass, call it a “one off” when we do something stupid, weird or thoughtless. But when we observe another person doing the very same thing, we attribute it to the whole of their personality — we assume that they are stupid, weird or thoughtless — all of the time.
Once we begin to take the sage advice of Socrates and Aristotle to heart, we start to notice all the times that we have “snapshots” of the silly things we say or do, but they do not in fact reflect the “whole of us”. These little freeze frames of our blunders, our misunderstandings, our lack of bandwidth are just hiccups. We are not fundamentally forever flawed – and we acknowledge that we also are not “flawless”.
Just imagine for a moment that you got to see the “rest of the story” unfold when it comes to that frustrated customer at the customer service desk. Maybe that guy leaves in haste, gets to his car and puts his head on the steering wheel, lets out a deep sigh. Nothing is going right today for him. It’s been a whole series of problems. He calls his wife to tell her about the return policy. She listens, she validates how annoying it is when this happens – and then she tells him, it’s okay. She offers that her sister might welcome the item and even offer to pay for it. The guy has a reset – and heads off to work, feeling more like himself. Later, you will meet this man when you pull your car in for an oil change. He is affable, friendly and efficient. If you even recall that this is the same man you saw at Target earlier, will you be caught off guard by the change in disposition?
There is always more to the story than meets the eye. The big flex is to catch yourself in those moments when you are not at your best and imagine how others might be observing you?
Is a judgy person telling themselves a story that this is how you behave all the time?
Is a compassionate person feeling empathy for you, seeing themselves in your predicament because they too have been there, done that and have the t-shirt?
Is a person who is having a really bad day and no bandwidth left storming out of the store, annoyed at you for holding up the customer service line?
Is a cheerful mom, juggling toddlers, getting under your skin because she is so bubbly and patient? Or, do you think to yourself – if she can be cheerful, so can I?
When we cultivate greater self-awareness, we are able to see ourselves in any one of these scenarios, depending on the kind of day we are having, how well resourced we are to cope with life’s ups and downs.
The real goal of self-awareness is to smooth off the rough edges and to be showing up with more consistency. Do we have enough personal reserves and resources to show up most of the time as our competent, compassionate, consistent self? Can we keep it in check, even when things get hard?
Dr. Ellen Langer playfully reminds us that we have a gazillion opportunities each day to get much more imaginative and creative about why people do certain things. You would be greatly surprised at just how easy it is to play this game, when you imagine yourself in someone else’s situation. When you overlay all the elements that have an impact on you and how you show up.
Switch places with the frustrated customer and the return. How are you feeling today and what might be your approach? Can you imagine being in their shoes yesterday when you were at your wit’s end?
What about that man shifted him into his “better self” when he got to work – when he was the one providing customer service? What motivated him to be so congenial?
Do you always let other drivers enter the stream of traffic – or are there days when you think to yourself “no way, buddy”? What is going on with you that prompts this one-off decisions?
I like to think of fundamental attribution error as “don’t judge a book by its cover”.
Don’t pass judgment on someone and assume that this is who they are 100 percent of the time. Have a more curious and generous interpretation – are they having a bad day, distracted by a pressing matter, had a terrible night of sleep?
When we pause and reflect on our foibles, behaviors and one-off decisions, we tap into more empathy and compassion for others. As Aristotle offered, we when know ourselves well and can actually see ourselves in others, we do in fact grow wiser.
On any given day, we might be on the other side of the fence. When we begin to consistently show up with greater self-awareness, we will often see ourselves in another person’s predicament or mood. From this vantage point, we will offer more kindness, compassion, good energy and support. We will naturally be inclined to give what might feel most helpful if we were in that situation.
We just might dole out more random acts of kindness and generous interpretations rather than snarky judgments and wrong assumptions.
Know thyself – and don’t judge a book by its cover. What will you discover when you use these filters?
