I am a fool

Perhaps the biggest fool on the face of the planet. You know when you make certain discoveries about yourself that are not exactly complimentary? Well, i have discovered--and not for the first time--one of my majorest character flaws. i would even venture to say it is my greatest flaw. And I am extremely sorry to say that it was Pride and Prejudice that helped me give a name to it. Or at least a description. Why am I sorry that Pride and Prejudice was involved? Simply because it annoys me that Pride and Prejudice seems to be heavily involved in every English major's life whether they want it to or not. Don't get me wrong; I like the book and like the movies even better. But I do not feel that Elizabeth Bennet and I "just have so much in common." Well, I was watching the part of P&P yesterday where Darcy and is talking to Elizabeth as she plays the piano and Lizzie accuses him of holding people in contempt, to which he retorts (and I quote) that her fault is to "willfully misunderstand them." Somebody might as well have punched me in the gut. It probably would have felt about the same.

Two days ago, I found myself face to face in the kitchen with my older sister angrily accusing her--if not in words than in action--of criticizing and disliking all my taste in music. Details are unimportant, but this was not the first time I had felt thus criticized. It was a small thing, but in the moment it was a big deal to me. I was tired of trying to please her, and all my siblings really (being the youngest, you know) and always seeming to meet with indifference if not disdain. But there in the kitchen, just when I was sure I was totally in the right, she declared, "Why do you always assume I don't like what you like! Why do you always assume I'm criticizing! I'm sick of it!" I'm not sure if my mouth dropped open, but it would have been appropriate if it had. I felt the scales drop from my eyes, and I was seeing a part of myself that I had never recognized before. Still shocked, and not quite repentant i mumbled an apology, but was really trying to wrap my brain around the implications of what she'd just said. Did I really assume so much about people? Did I who was always, by principle, so critical of those who assumed or analyzed things so totally blind to this defect in myself?

i thought about every recent unfairness or crushing doubt i had experienced and came to a very important--and humiliating--conclusion: in almost every occasion, my own assumptions had made me "willfully misunderstand." I had assumed that so and so thought such and such about me. I had assumed that such and such meant such and such, etc. etc. All subconsciously, of course.

And this of course brought me around to thinking about a gospel principle that I first thought seriously about on my mission. "Charity thinketh no evil." What does this mean anyway? I never thought very hard about it because it seemed so obvious; of course charity would think no evil. Most good, albeit uncharitable, people might have a few bad thoughts, but nothing evil, necessarily. But the way it's phrased in Portuguese says that charity "does not suspect wrong." I remember a talk a friend sent to me in Brazil that addressed this very thing in a short paragraph:

"Guilelessness," it says, "is the grace for suspicious people. And the possession of it is the great secret to personal influence. You will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who influence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up; but in that atmosphere [of belief] they expand, and find encouragement and educative fellowship. It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love 'thinketh no evil,' imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every action."

This friend will probably never know how much this talk came to mean to me on the mission, where I often felt so utterly inadequate. (The letter with my response was lost.) No one may ever know how this helped me dealt with my own crippling insecurities. "Don't be self-conscious!" this screams. I spent the year before my mission working on this. "Don't be suspicious!" it declares. I spent time with my companions working on this. But in spite of all my hard work, I feel like I've just fallen back into the same old vice: "thinking evil."

What can I do? How can i make amends with the world for all the willful misunderstanding I have unwittingly pumped into it? I will start by adopting a new assumption that no one anywhere is even thinking about me at all let alone bad about me. This sounds extreme--and it is--but it's what I must do to purge myself of self-consciousness. And then, the logical next step is to stop myself from having the unkind thoughts I was so afraid of in others, to stop imputing motives and to stop being so ridiculous!

Well, this has been long and no doubt way too introspective to be even remotely interesting, but i had to write it down so i don't forget and slip into the same thing in the future. i consider myself a confident, reliable person--exuberant even. a good friend. Responsible. Loyal. Well, i have been exposed for the fraud I am. It appears that the person I have misunderstood the very most is, of course, myself.