Blind Spots

This week I’ve had an initiation into the perils of public life with my first ever bit of hate mail. I’d like to say I’ll treasure it, but let’s face it, no-one’s that enlightened! After the initial shock wore off, it began to fascinate me. Why would someone go out of their way to tell you not only that they didn’t like what you wrote, but that you should stop writing altogether? Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but quite why they felt empowered to call for a halt to my literary escapades rather escapes me. Even more curiously, buried in the strange ramblings was a suggestion that we should all be kinder to each other. Call me old-fashioned, but writing poison-pen letters doesn’t exactly cut it in the kindness stakes where I come from.

It made me wonder how the writer could fail to see their own very obvious contradiction in terms, yet we witness these kinds of blind spots on a grand scale in the news every day. A classic example is that happy band of American pro-life fundamentalists who think it’s perfectly justifiable to bomb abortion clinics and don’t seem to get that there’s an intrinsic conflict in trying to preserve life in the womb at any price, including murder. That has to be the most monumentally deluded case of ‘the end justifies the means’ thinking I’ve ever come across.
It may be a very extreme case, but it highlights just how destructive a lack of self-awareness can be. If we’re not willing to look at our own behaviour, we can become so out of integrity with ourselves that we will undertake actions that are totally opposed to what we stand for. On an individual scale, this is what happens when we don’t pay attention to the everyday choices we make and why we often end up a long way away from our intended goals.

Shedding a little light on your own blind spots can free you from persistent problems and get you back on track with the life you want to create. After all, if you don’t even realise you’re part of the problem, how exactly are you going to fix it? A good friend of mine calls these little behavioural aberrations ‘unskilful’ – they’re the places in our lives where we know things don’t work too well, but we haven’t yet seen that perhaps the way we’re approaching them might be part of the problem.

Take for example someone who’s shy and wants to connect with people, but adopts an aloof air as a form of self-protection, and so always manages to miss out on getting to know others. That’s an ineffective and unskilful coping strategy because it achieves exactly the opposite of what it intended. Ever been persistently and aggressively chatted up by someone who just wouldn’t go away even when it was mightily clear that there was no attraction or interest at all? That’s another form of the same thing – at what point was arguing the toss ever going to help? Trying to force someone to like you could only ever achieve the complete opposite.

Not everyone crashes and burns in the same kind of way, but contradictory behaviour is par for the course for all of us – with the possible exception of a few saints. The key to getting an insight into your own blind spots is to start paying attention to whether your actions are in integrity with your values and your goals.

I’ve written about this particular exercise before, but it bears repeating on a regular basis, because it can give you so much insight for very little effort. Take a quick look at your life right now and jot down your main priorities and what you want to achieve. Then notice just how much time you spend in activities that support those goals. What you’ll probably find is that very little of your time will be spent creating the things you profess to want the most.

Having taken this little inventory, start looking at why you’re not doing what you say you want to do. Is it just the inertia of general resistance? If so, the only way out is to discipline yourself to just get on with it. Could it be that perhaps you’ve set yourself a goal you don’t really want? If that’s the case, then a little more thinking time is required to get clear on what you really want. Or do you have ambitions that you somehow think will just drop into your lap? Those ones need a reality check and an action plan, or they’ll just stay pipe dreams for ever.

Of course, if you’re a sucker for punishment, then you can always ask a good friend to tell you what your blind spots are. Remember that the psychological definition of a blind spot is that it’s known to others, although it’s not obvious to you. You might not like the answer you get when you ask that question, but it’s a fast-track way of getting clear if you’re stuck in a rut. Just pick a friend who knows how to stay on the right side of honesty – truthful, but not hurtful, or you’ll have opened a whole other can of worms.

It’s all simple stuff that can make a huge difference, as can being clear on what’s your issue and what’s someone else’s. In a frantic world, there’s a lot of stress and weirdness about and we just can’t take it personally. In the case of the hate mail writer, I could get upset about it or I could realise that it says more about them than about me and get hours of fun and enjoyment (and a column) out of dissecting that kind of behaviour. It’s a bit of a no-brainer, really.

It reminds me of a fabulous Buddhist story that I shall now re-tell rather badly, but hopefully you’ll get the gist. At one particular gathering, a man consistently harangued the Buddha, attacking his beliefs, but this was met by absolute detachment from the Buddha himself. When the meeting ended, one of his followers asked him why he sustained such a prolonged attack without reacting angrily or feeling the need to defend himself. The Buddha replied, “If someone offers you a gift and you do not accept it, to whom does the gift belong?”.

Here endeth the lesson. Have a fabulous week, pay attention to where you’re spending your time and your energy and if someone offers you a lousy gift, just don’t accept it!

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All material © 2006 Alison Porter. No article may be reproduced in full or in part without the express permission of the author. (Originally posted 18 Sep 06)