The Trouble With “X”

When we see how all our plans shipwreck on the characters of the people we have to deal with we are “in one way” seeing what it must be like for the Father.  But only in one way.  There are two respects in which the Father’s view must be very different from ours.  In the first place, He sees (like you) how all the people in your home or your job are in various degrees awkward or difficult; but when He looks into that home or factory or office He sees one more person of the same kind–the one you never do see.  I mean, of course, yourself.  That is the next great step in wisdom–to realize that you also are just that sort of person.  You also have a fatal flaw in your character.  All the hopes and plans of others have again and again ship-wrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.

We don’t like rationing which is imposed upon us, but I suggest one form of rationing which we ought to impose on ourselves.  Abstain from all thinking about other people’s faults, unless your duties as a teacher or parent make it necessary to think about them.  Whenever the thoughts come unnecessarily into one’s mind, why not simply shove them away?  And think of one’s own faults instead?  For there, with the Father’s help, one can do something.  Of all the awkward people in your house or job there is only one whom you can improve very much.  That is the practical end at which to begin.  And really, we’d better.  The job has to be tackled some day: and every day we put it off will make it harder to begin.

C.S. Lewis, from “God in the Dock”