The Parts We Leave Out

There are things about ourselves we know quite well.

And there are things we would rather not know at all.

Most of us carry some idea of the person we believe ourselves to be.

We are kind, generous, thoughtful, and responsible. We love our families. We try not to hurt people.

And then something happens that does not quite fit.

• We are grateful and resentful.

• Generous and selfish.

• Compassionate and judgmental.

We can love someone deeply and still, in a moment of anger, feel the impulse to wound them.

Both may be true.

Perhaps one of the harder things about being human is accepting that we are made up of contradictions.

There are darker parts of ourselves that can be particularly difficult to include in the picture: anger, envy, resentment, selfishness, the desire to control, even the wish to hurt someone.

It may be easier to recognize these qualities in someone else.

We may be surprised by our own reactions.

Why did I need to have the last word?

Why did someone else's success bother me?

Why did I withhold warmth, become controlling, or secretly enjoy being proved right?

These moments can be uncomfortable because they don't fit easily with the person we believe ourselves to be.

I am generous. And sometimes I resent giving.

I am compassionate. And sometimes I judge.

Both may be true.

The contradiction can be difficult to bear.

I love you. And in that moment, something in me wanted to hurt you.

Perhaps the difficulty is not that such impulses arise, but that we find them so hard to recognize as our own.

What we refuse to know about ourselves does not necessarily disappear.

It may still find its way into how we behave and how we treat the people around us.

Feeling is not action.

I can recognize anger, envy, resentment, or the desire to control without allowing those feelings to determine what I do next.

But first I have to recognize that the feeling belongs to me.

As I grow older, I am less convinced that maturity means leaving our less admirable qualities behind. Perhaps it has more to do with knowing ourselves well enough to take responsibility for what we do next.

After a lifetime of becoming who we thought we should be, perhaps we can become a little more curious about who we actually are.

Not with shame.

Not with indulgence.

Simply with a willingness to look.

And when we encounter something we would rather not find there, perhaps we can resist the impulse to turn away.

Yes. This, too, is part of me.

Now, what am I going to do with it?