Feelings about Others

It's surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you're not comfortable within yourself, you can't be comfortable with others.” – Sydney J. Harris

Aside from your family, who you have no control over, other people, who you have chosen in some way to be in your life, are mirrors of yourself. You are in a way choosing those people who will validate your view of yourself, good or bad. We all want desperately to be validated. But we don't realize that by choosing certain people to be with us we are validating our idea of who we are instead of our idea of who we want to be.

Even, typically, when you choose a mate, you are choosing someone who will reflect your ideas of what personality characteristics you feel you are missing but really want to have. They are a reflection of what you want to be but feel that you are not. It is all about you and your needs, and the needier you are the more pronounced this tendency becomes.

There is a saying that whenever you point a finger at someone else in judgment, there are really three fingers pointing back at you. Just recently I judged someone harshly and even as I was doing it I knew that it was because she reminded me of all those things about myself that I would prefer not to face. She was in a way validating my critical opinion of myself. It wasn't about her faults, it was about mine.

This is something we all need to be aware of as we go around judging everyone. Instead of judging them we need to realize that we invited them into our lives for a reason. We need to ask ourselves "What can I learn about myself from this person? What can he/she tell me about where I need to improve?". And to recognize that if we are not comfortable being with them, it is because we are not comfortable being with ourselves. It is ourselves that we need to try to improve, not them.