Some years ago, a group of people decided to conduct a survey on “What I hate about myself”. They mailed questionnaires to people asking them to fill them in and deposit the filled-in forms at a library—with or without filling in their names and addresses.
To their surprise, not only did they receive a lot of responses, but they also found that people did not shy away from revealing their identity or show any reluctance to discuss what they perceived to be their negative traits with others.
What were some of the things that people hated most about themselves? Given below are a few answers:
1. I am rude to people
2. I expect everyone to love me and treat me well, but I can’t do the same for others
3. I judge people harshly
4. I am never satisfied with what I am, what I have or what I eat
And the list went on and on…
I must add here that I think the people who responded to the questionnaire were honest with themselves and with others, in facing up to their own negative traits. After all, we often use the term ‘the dark side of human nature’ to refer to those traits that people prefer not to talk about. Many of us have flaws and weaknesses, which we hide from others; some of us prefer not to face up to them ourselves; we actually refuse to see the truth about ourselves.
That is why I expressed my admiration for the people who actually subjected themselves to a self-analysis and were aware of their own weaknesses. After all, it has been said that it is the worst man who sees himself as the best; that is, he is unaware of his own flaws and weaknesses.
Man has the potential to be both good and evil. God has given us the freedom of will to exercise our choice: it is our choices that determine what kind of people we are. If we have to conquer the negative traits that lead to unhappiness, evil or sin, all we have to do is to choose the positives, choose good, choose God.
Dada J P Vaswani was a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader.
