FINGER POINTING

A man asked his father-in-law, “Many people praised you for a successful marriage, could you please share with me your secret?”. The father-in-law answered in a smile, “Never criticize your wife for her shortcomings or when she does something wrong. Always bear in mind that because of her shortcomings and weaknesses, he could not find a better husband than you.”

We all look forward to being loved and respected. Many people are afraid of losing face. Generally when a person makes a mistake, he would look around to find a scapegoat to point the finger at. This is the start of a war.

We should always remember than when we point one finger at a person, the other four fingers are pointing at ourselves. If we forgive the others, others will ignore our mistakes, too. Finger pointing doesn’t solve any problem. It normally leads in out of control, heated personal attacks, badmouthing, the end result is physical fighting.



A few rules should be set in place to maintain a level of civility.

OPENING YOUR WINDOWS

Many times we are blinded so that we do not understand ourselves. We love ourselves so much and this makes us hesitate to think and accept our limitations, our erring dispositions, weaknesses, shortcomings, and inabilities. There are times that we need others to mirror and reflect to us how we are going, growing, and glowing.

There are many things about ourselves that we can share with others, but how willing are we to do so? Some things we keep to ourselves and these are no one else's business but ours. There are opinions and feelings we willingly share to our most intimate friends, other things less private, perhaps, we share with some acquaintances, while there are other facets of our lives that are matters of common knowledge. Most of the times we hold on to our belief that matters of personal interest must be closely guarded.

Luft and Igham came up with the famous Johari Window as a guiding tool in confronting ourselves. It is suggested that we take one window at a time.