Personal Weaknesses
Personal Weaknesses
By Wade Lee Hudson
Not everyone suffers from the same weaknesses, but most of us are often burdened with many of the same problems. Though most people are good people and want to do what is right, far too often, personally, we:
Are arrogant.
Are convinced we have the complete answer to specific questions.
Believe we pretty much have it all together, have matured as much as we can, and are coping well enough.
Fail to adequately empathize with others and don’t try to better understand those who disagree with us.
Are unable to see many sides to the same issue.
Live in issue silos and echo chambers.
Gain meaning for our lives by assuming we’re superior human beings and don’t appreciate everyone’s essential equality.
Don’t recognize the advantages we’ve had.
Are rooted in an identity that’s based on how well we climb social ladders.
Stereotype people who live elsewhere.
Focus on the outer world and neglect the non-material, or spiritual, world.
Avoid critical self-examination and don’t work enough on our self-improvement.
Fail to acknowledge mistakes and resolve not to repeat them.
Don’t relentlessly pursue the truth, “connect the dots,” and fall victim to ignorance.
Engage in too much short-term thinking and not enough long-term thinking.
Aren’t ready to pay the price required for personal transformation.
Minimize our own responsibility and scapegoat others.
Dwell in ideas and abstractions, aren’t pragmatic, fall into dogmatism, neglect our feelings, are not present, and fail to develop our emotional intelligence.
Assume some one person must always be in charge.
Are too selfish and too concerned about our self-interest or our family’s.
Are too ambitious and care too much about winning at any price.
Don’t care enough about what’s best for the nation, the planet, and all humanity.
Are afraid to fail.
Lack self-respect, feel we have to prove ourselves, and believe that being widely recognized as very successful is terribly important.
Proceed with lives of quiet or not-so-quiet desperation, or find a comfort zone and choose to stick with it.
With our social interactions, we:
Defer to those who have more status, power, education or income.
Objectify people and the environment.
Are judgmental and disrespectful toward others and ourselves.
Allow unconscious bias to lead us to react to others based on their skin color, gender, or other arbitrary physical characteristics.
Are insensitive to how our actions offend others.
Identify with and respect members of our “tribe” and demean “the other.”
Discriminate against people who have less education or income.
Let our anger get the best of us.
Use shrill rhetoric that alienates people, lecture too much, and talk more than we listen.
Are mean to friends as well as foes.
Are dishonest and hypocritical.
Demonize opponents with abstract labels and debate the accuracy of those labels rather than focus on their (concrete) actions and the impact of those actions.
Resort to name-calling and personal attacks, ignore our common humanity, and forget to “love our enemies.”
Fail to empathize with our opponents and acknowledge that if our parents raised us in similar ways in similar conditions, we too would likely act in similar ways.
Inflame emotions, distort reality, and undercut rationality.
Are unwilling to compromise.
Care too much about building our own organization and neglect cooperating with like-minded organizations.
Are blindly loyal to and submit to some people, dominate others, and relate to few as equals.
Follow leaders because when we do so we have fewer decisions to make.
Label others, place them in boxes, and keep them there.
Are unable to agree to disagree and still communicate fruitfully.
Since challenging top-down structures can cause conflict, lead to frustrating failure, or subject rebels to punishment, we choose to totally avoid the risk.