Looking Closely

Inventory:  To take stock of the resources or items on hand.

"Putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes.  Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person entirely.  The inventory was ours, not the other man's."

I tell the story often of a friend of a friend whose sponsor would answer the phone and simply say: "It's not them - it's you" before hanging up.  I'm not sure that truer words were ever spoken.  I don't like to look at myself, preferring to poke and dig and pry at your shortcomings instead of look at my own. If you want to take a minor matter with a loved one and escalate it into something more catastrophic simply go on the offensive when your behavior is questioned: "Yeah, maybe I do that, but you . . . "  Those of us in long-term relationships know how often something big results from something small.

An elephant is a mouse built to an alcoholic's specifications.

The best defense is a big offense.

"The first thing apparent (once the inventory is begun) was that this world and it's people were often quite wrong.  To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got."

"Some will object to many of the questions posed, because they think their own character defects have not bee so glaring.  To these it can be suggested that a conscientious examination is likely to reveal the very defects the objectionable questions are concerned with."