I think the first step in addressing hypocrisy is acknowledging that I myself frequently find myself acting hypocritical. Therefore, this post, and most of my posts, are written for my own personal growth. Writing helps me organize and understand my reflections.

Why Are Relationships Always the Best Teachers?

I often find myself embarrassed to admit to myself that I learn a lot from romantic relationships. I don’t know why it is embarrassing for me, I suppose I wish I could be above feeling sad about romance not going the way I want it to. However, it makes sense. A friend of mine consoled me once after a break up by explaining that it makes sense to feel torn up about relationships not working out because human beings are biologically programmed to seek a mate. While I don’t believe my only purpose is to find a mate and have children, I agree that relationships are incredibly important in cognitive development. Romantic relationships have been both traumatic and empowering for me and have shaped who I am in a holistic way. When I reflect on my actions, both positively and negatively, I often recall a situation in a romantic relationship that might have taught me or encouraged me to behave in a particular way.

I was recently feeling a bit down about not having my text messages responded to or read and thought about saying something like, “if you aren’t interested in talking with me anymore, I would prefer it if you would tell me blatantly.” Then I started thinking of scenarios in which, of course, I had the decency to tell someone that I was not interested in talking to them anymore because I wasn’t interested in them…and I could really only remember two very severe situations in which I did that. I was being hypocritical because I was receiving behavior that makes me feel bad, however, I need to recognize that I also do not go out of my way to possibly hurt someone else’s feelings if it isn’t absolutely necessary. I would much prefer for them to “take a hint”. While it is hurtful to feel a former romantic partner’s change in interest via one word responses, no responses, or disinterested remarks, I know that I am also guilty of this behavior. Therefore, it might be best for everyone, especially myself, to just take the hint.

How Lessons From Romantic Relationships Can Be Translated for Self Improvement

As I was thinking about my own hypocrisy in romantic relationships, I found myself thinking more about my other hypocritical behaviors. There is a very large presence of hypocritical demonstrations in the cyber, professional, and day-to-day world at the moment with COVID-19 and BLM protests in addition to a plethora of other severe global societal challenges. It can be easy to hop on the internet and say “humans are the worst, try harder” then binge-watch Netflix all day to distract myself from the craziness in the world. Therefore, I believe it would benefit me to pin-point my own hypocritical behavior, romantically and otherwise, and consider how I can prioritize addressing these behaviors on a case by case basis.

Some of my hypocrisy is not necessarily detrimental to my personal growth at the moment, i.e. continuing to hope that some of my friends will “take a hint” that I don’t want to hang out in groups in which noone is wearing face masks by saying, “I’m busy working on my thesis”. There is some truth to that, I really am working on my thesis, but the real reason I don’t want to join group activities right now is because I believe the epidemiologists and infectious disease experts that are begging us to continue wearing face masks and practice social distancing. While I would like to address this, aforementioned, hypocritical behavior, a more pressing and detrimental hypocritical behavior of mine is telling my social media following that we all need to work harder while I continue to binge Netflix and make TikToks when I could be taking this unique opportunity of staying at home every day to learn skills that will help me be part of the solution to global environmental problems.

I don’t believe I would have come to the conclusion that I need to start addressing my work related hypocrisy if I hadn’t first been thinking about my romantic relationship related hypocrisy, which is still annoying to admit, but is what it is. In any case, I wanted to share this thought process with the cyber world to hopefully encourage others to see how their romantic experiences have instilled behavior, both good and bad, in their professional and day-to-day lives. Also, to plant the seed of acknowledging and accepting being guilty of hypocritical behavior so that it can eventually be addressed (this bit is very much for myself).

Thank you for reading and much love.