I have so many defects of character that it is embarrassing. I know what most of them are. And someday soon I am going to sit down and list every single one of them on paper, talk them over with someone I trust, and look at them without flinching. That is not a comfortable exercise. It is a necessary one.
Most men spend enormous energy managing the outside world, trying to fix situations and people and circumstances, and almost no energy at all doing an honest inventory of their own interior. I know men with advanced degrees in human behavior, years of professional experience, who still walk around confused about why things keep going wrong, mostly because they are looking everywhere except at themselves.
I am forty-five years old. I have graduate training in psychology and human development. I have spent over two decades working in behavioral science and human services. And I have spent plenty of that time wondering why people around me could not do better, why they kept falling short, why they kept disappointing me. The answer was sitting right in front of me the whole time, and it had my name on it.
Blame Is a Waste of a Life
Blaming other people for your problems is probably the single most effective way to guarantee that nothing in your life improves. It is also one of the most human tendencies there is. We are wired to protect our sense of self, to explain our failures by pointing outward rather than inward. That wiring keeps us safe in the short term and stuck in the long term.
What I am trying to do, and what I am not always successful at, is direct my energy toward changing myself rather than cataloging the ways other people have fallen short. That is a daily discipline. It does not become automatic. It requires constant recalibration because the default setting for most of us is pointing the finger.
Here is what I can say I do well: I try. I read. I seek feedback from people who are honest with me. I look for beautiful things in the world even when I am struggling. I try to speak life wherever I go. I tell on myself to people who can hold me accountable and correct me when I am wrong. That is not a finished product, that is a practice.
The Work of December and Every Day After
Every year I do a serious self-reflection at the end of December. I chart a course for the coming year not based on goals I want to achieve, but based on the character work I still need to do. That kind of reflection is uncomfortable and valuable in equal measure.
Disposition, the word, refers to a person's inherent qualities of mind and character. The question is not just what your disposition is. The question is whether you are willing to examine it honestly and do something about what you find. That takes more courage than most external challenges a man will ever face.
Put yourself on your own list. Not for the sake of self-punishment, but for the sake of growth that is actually real. The man who knows his faults and works on them is ten times more useful, to himself and everyone around him, than the man who is certain everyone else is the problem.