March 2
The Motive I Supplied
A friend fails to return a call, and we know why: they are tired of us. A member disagrees at a business meeting, and we know why: they want attention. The certainty arrives before any inquiry. We have facts about what someone did and a much fuller story about what was in their mind.
Our own motives are complicated enough to make this confidence worth questioning. We have missed calls while worried, distracted, or unsure what to say. We have disagreed sincerely and still hoped to be noticed. Remembering that complexity need not mean overlooking a repeated pattern or inventing a charitable excuse for every hurtful act. It means distinguishing what we witnessed from what we supplied. Then a conversation has a better chance of discovering something. Inventory concerns our habits of judgment as well as our outward behavior, including the stories that prepare us to respond coldly before anyone has explained themselves.
What am I treating as a known motive when it is really my interpretation?
Their explanation has not been heard yet.
For the A.A. nerds: Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, Step Four; As Bill Sees It, No. 17, “Toward Honesty.”