The Person Who Showed Me What I Couldn't See

Image by @david_underland from Unsplash

Who comes to mind if I asked you: who showed you something you couldn't see about yourself?

I'd guess your answer looks like a list of your trusted circle. A spouse. Sometimes a child. Your closest friends. They're your blind spot checkers, the ones who catch what you miss and offer you a different angle when you're too close to see straight.

There's truth in that.

But there's one more name that belongs on the list, and it's the one that makes the final call. My own self.

More often than I'd like to admit, I've had the best advice and the most generous feedback available to me, and still missed it. Not because the people around me failed me, but because I hadn't yet had the shift in mindset needed to actually see it. There was something in the way, a kind of splinter in my own eye, and no amount of outside clarity could remove it for me. That had to be a choice. And even once I saw clearly, the next question was harder still: what was I willing to do about it?

So who was the one standing in the way? The prideful, defensive me, certain I already knew.

And who was the one who finally let the truth in? The willing, teachable me, the one who decided that being right mattered less than growing.

Looking back on this week, that's what I'm grateful for. Not that I had all the answers. Just that, enough times, I was willing to put my pride down long enough to hear them.