All the necessary disclaimers
I want to talk to you today about hypocrisy. There was a time in my life when hypocrites bothered me so much. I would boil with anger on sight sometimes, that’s how much it got to me. And when someone would dare to tell me how to live my life when they couldn’t even manage to do it themselves, well, I was enraged.
And it’s only natural to feel that way. After all, nobody has the right to tell you who you are and are not allowed to be. And only you can know what it is that you want out of your life. When someone else tries to insert their opinion into your experience, especially without being asked, it can be a point of contention. We all want the freedom to have our own experience out of life, and in terms of unsolicited criticism, it even becomes a case of disrespect.
And there are people who take it even a step further, becoming not just toxic, but abusive. Narcissistic abusers have a habit of keeping impossibly high standards of those around them, for example, without any intention of holding themselves equal to those expectations. These people are certainly not worth listening to.
So remember, you have every right to live your own life. You have your own unique perspective, and a right to live life on your own terms, as long as those terms don’t harm others. And if you’re being mistreated, get out. Don’t take these words as an excuse for toxic behavior or as explanation for why you aren’t getting the respect you deserve. Now, all this being said, there is more than one kind of hypocrite. And that’s what I’m trying to get at today.
“I may be a hypocrite, but I have a point”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Nobody wants to listen to a hypocrite, even though they give the best advice. Let’s be honest, nobody is “perfect”. That is to say, everybody’s made some mistakes in their lives. For some people, these mistakes are brief, and obvious to them immediately. However, life isn’t always so linear.
Some people don’t realize what mistakes they make until their whole world comes crashing down in a major way, or until years worth of regret subtly catches up to them. And it is during these times where hypocrisy is, in a way, inevitable. We tend to see it a lot in older people, though not exclusively. And for those of us who haven’t experienced this sort of paradigm shift, it can be hard to relate to.
Some lessons are only learned through experience. When you build your life on past experiences only, you can easily get guided into strange, ill-fitting perspectives. And this is what many of us do, in various ways. Think of the teenage parent, or the reformed drug addict, the gang member turned cop tropes. These things are cliché because they exist, and many people relate to them on a deep level.
If you’ve spent many years of your life devoted to a regrettable choice, the most natural thing in the world is to try to steer others away from your past mistakes. You can never have the time back that you wasted running from your problems or making bad decisions, but hypothetically, you can try and keep others from doing the same things. And a lot of us feel almost a sense of responsibility to do so. A sort of evolutionarily-driven humanism where there is an overwhelming urge to build a giant stop sign in front of our past mistakes, and to hold it up every chance we get. Many of our most motivational transformation stories have this element in them.
Lack of communication
I believe a lot of hypocrites have this sort of air about them, but when it’s cloaked by boundaries and secrets, how are you ever supposed to know who is genuinely trying to steer you in the right direction, and who’s just trying to be nasty? Well, it’s not foolproof. You can’t always know.
A logical first step is to try to really take what you know about them and piece it together, not just factually or from your own viewpoint, but with a little conjecture into theirs. If you know, for example, that your parents had you early in life as a surprise, you may feel contempt if they try to control your own sexuality or experimentation, because they obviously got to have that experience themselves. But if they seem genuinely scared or concerned, maybe raising you in their earlier years hasn’t been so easy and they just want a better life for you. This approach is a lot of guessing and requires that you be willing to put your own perceptions to the side for a moment, which isn’t always easy.
Another option is to just ask the person who’s pushing their opinions on you, “What would happen if I didn’t do things that way? Did it really cause you to suffer?” This way you can get their (often unfiltered) perspective, without all the pressure being on you to conform. You may end up learning something about them that you didn’t realize before.
But if you’re unwilling to consider them in your assessment of their opinion, don’t just avoid making one. Although it can feel judgemental at times, there is often a pearl of wisdom behind much of people’s criticism. It may apply to you, it may not, but try to take what they’re saying into consideration. If you strip away the feelings for a moment and look at their (unsolicited) advice factually, could you use any part of it to better your life?
The Key to Success
I’ve heard it said that criticism is the greatest key to success. That you should seek it out often, and really do your best to put it to use, and only then will you manage a revolutionary amount of growth. And I think, to some extent, this is true. Although it is normal to be your own worst critic (to hear more about that, you can read my post about self-hate here), other people are a fountain of fresh ideas and perspectives that can really spurr new successes and growth journeys beyond your original vision. We do, in fact, become better together, if we can learn the art of taking criticism well.
Ultimately, it comes down to listening deeply, not taking things personally, and putting things into action. And hypocrites are a gold-mine of information! They can be an opportunity to add years of experience into your life, without having to go through the time and heartache of going through things yourself, if utilized correctly. And when it comes to big life decisions, this can be exactly what we’re looking for. So let’s break the process down a little further. How do we deal with hypocrites?
How to listen to a hypocrite
The first thing you need to do in order to learn from a hypocrite is to really get them talking. I’m not just talking about hearing their opinion, I mean get their story. Some good questions to guide the conversation are things like, “have you always lived by this rule?” and “what made you learn that lesson?” Your main goal here is to get to a story time. Some people are not willing to open up, but if you convey a sense of respect and true interest, many people will be happy to share their life story and wisdom with you. After all, it’s a basic human instinct to want to feel like an expert about something, and the one thing everybody is an expert about is their own life.
Once you get them into storytime, really hunker down. Focus on them, solely. No distractions from your phone or crazy birds outside, just put your listening hat on and settle in. They aren’t likely to interrupt their own story, and so it’s up to you not to do so either. Work to make sure you understand the setting, the details, the perspective of them, the main character, just like you would when you watch a movie. Also like watching a movie, acclimate your own perspective to theirs. That is to say, suspend your disbelief. Pretend this story is happening in a completely separate universe where their focus is the camera lens, and their narration is fact, just like the movies. This is the only way to get a clear picture of their perspective, and ultimately, the only way to compare it to yours.
Part of treating this like a movie is separating yourself from it. This is important so that you don’t feel judged in the telling of the story, and so that the person telling it doesn’t feel hostility or defensiveness. Those are the things that close people up and prohibit you from having a real connection. If you want to make use of their perspective, it’s important to dismantle the wall you have built up and work towards a real connection, even if it’s just momentary. The more details you can get from them about their journey and their shifting perspective on that journey, the better.
What to do with the hypocrite’s story
So once you’ve gathered the most complete story you can about the hypocritical advice and the history behind it, you can set to work decoding and analyzing, as it were. How similar was their position to the one you’re in? Did they share your perspective once? Where did that get them, and how much does that apply to your life and what surrounds you?
It’s important to look at their whole arch of growth. Maybe they started off in a different place than you did, for better or worse, or maybe their situation was completely different from yours. But when you see the lessons they learned, combined with their growth as a person, is there anything that you can learn or even just see better now from their story?
Often the moral of the story of a hypocrite is, “don’t turn out like me”. While this is a valid perspective, does it fit your goals and opinions? What about the resolution of the story? Are they starting to try to put back together the pieces of their life? Or maybe they’ve made a full comeback. Maybe they feel like they’re beyond saving now. Evaluate that too. Is this where you want to end up? Do you agree with their assessment of their current position?
Putting things into action
Once you’ve taken everything you’ve learned about this person and figured out how it fits into your life, it’s time to make use of your newfound wisdom. Maybe you’ve simply learned that you’re fine and you don’t need to change. That’s cool, then don’t. But otherwise, take an honest look at yourself and your life and make an assessment about how you’ve ended up so far. Do you see the same slip-ups or premature thinking in your own actions and decisions?
Knowing what you need to change in order to be who you want is half the battle. Really acting upon these ideas and growing is tough, at any stage of your life. You will find that you either want to change character traits, or your habits and behaviors. But guess what? Those are also formed by your character traits. So basically, no matter how you cut it, if you want a different life, you’ll have to become a different person. In order to do this, you need to come up with a game plan and stick to it, without fail.
It will take discipline to build the thoughts, feelings and habits that you desire. But in the long run, it is immensely satisfying. Not easy, but simple, you’ll need to hold yourself accountable for the things that you used to cut yourself slack on. You don’t need to get down on yourself because of your shortcomings (to understand more about this balance, check out my article on self love vs self improvement), but you do need to gently redirect yourself consistently in order to become the new person that you strive for.
Why bother with all this?
So to all of those who may think this process is long and tedious, I want to tell you right now, I get it. On some level, I agree, it is a time consuming process and a lot of effort is necessary to pull this whole thing off. In fact, simply outlining the whole process took a considerable amount of effort, and made the approach and insight seem more complicated and less exciting. But that doesn’t make it not worth it.
The truth is, explaining this perspective in depth, step-by-step, with words, makes it sound more complicated than it actually is. The bottom line in all this is that there is more behind hypocrisy than a judgmental person looking to make your life miserable. In fact, it’s extremely prevalent that what appears as a hypocrite is really just a genuine person who wants to keep you from making their mistakes, but is either bad at communicating that, or is afraid to let you know about their regrettable past. If you can manage to make a real connection with that person behind the buffer, you’ll often get a new friend and a new perspective too.
It’s really difficult to live life with open arms, trusting that nobody is out to get you. But very few people really are. Most people are just as “reasonable” as you. They just have their own perspective, past experiences, goals and values. Listening to the perspectives of others doesn’t mean you have to agree or that you’re not being true to yourself. All it means is that you have the ability to treat others with the respect they deserve, and that you have the beginnings of what could become a beautiful transformation. Or at the very least, a turn in the road that bring you to a different place.
Your point of view doesn’t have to be dampened by someone else’s perspective. In fact, it can often be strengthened by it. But if you have an open mind that is willing to let the stories of others in, you can make great waves. So listen to yourself. Listen to others. Take all the information in as just that; information. And use it, transform it into a more informed gameplan for your life. And to all the hypocrites out there, thank you for your wisdom. I hope that I may be mature and respectful enough to connect genuinely with you and make use of your truths in my life in every way I can moving forward. You are the gift that I didn’t realize I had.
