Almost all of the people that I deal with are reasonable, well-intentioned individuals. And so am I. Yet in the course of life, there are conflicts, hurtful words, vengeful acts . . . and in those rare moment of self honesty, I realize that everything that happens isn’t the “other guy’s fault.” I, too, am to blame. There have been situations where I acted coldly and callously. There have been times when I was cruel and malicious. The question is: why? It’s not that I am not a nice guy – I know I am. Yet there are times when my behavior isn’t nice. Why would a caring individual like me act in a manner inconsistent with that image? And more significantly, what can I do about it?
This Shmuz focuses us on one of the keys to growing in all human relationships: learning to focus on the inner condition – how people actually feel – and learning to ignore the outer condition, the show that people put on to hide what is actually going on in their hearts.
