A New Way of Dealing with Imperfections

In yesterday’s blog I asked readers to consider imperfections from Brene Brown’s perspective: “as reminders that we are all in this together.” Too often imperfections are seized upon as objects of ridicule, criticism and judgment. This way of thinking about imperfections does NOT create warm fuzzy feelings of connectedness.

What if she’s right? How might we embrace this new way of dealing with imperfections?

One simple solution might be to separate the behavior from an assessment of character. Here is an example:

When someone is, shall we say, less than honest with us (in our opinion), instead of telling others that this person is a liar, maybe we should have a conversation with said person. Be curious. Ask for clarification. And don’t try to set them up! Don’t bring your mental video of what you think happened and spring it on them like Perry Mason!

Be direct without being aggressive. “Hey, yesterday you said...quote… and I need to circle back around because I’m confused and I really want to understand. Here’s why. Previously, you said….quote…. And unless I am way off base, both of these things do not fit together. What am I missing?” There are a kazillion things that could be going on here. A person can lie without being a liar (one’s a behavior, the second is a character defect). A person can say things that are confusing to others because they are both true in different contexts, not because they are lying in one case and telling the truth in another.