WHICH DO YOU WANT MORE?

My motives have been exposed to me again. Don't you just love it when that happens?

It's like that thing when you see someone acting in a particular way, and you quietly think to yourself: I know why you're being like this even if you don't. I can't tell you because you'd want to thump me (probably) but I do see it.

It's like that, only it's you, raising an eyebrow and getting ready to thump ... yourself... for pointing out what's going on... inside yourself. It is a moment of awful, but sort of wonderful, self-awareness.

Well anyway. I'm making a decision today, and I've heard myself say:

"I don't want to do That. I want to do This!"

and...

"... yes that's because really, if you're honest, you feel like... this. So, Matt, which do you want more? I mean really?"

I used the phrase 'cognitive dissonance' three times the other day in a conversation with Emmie, and I think that was an overuse, so I'm a bit reticent to use it again, but that is what this is, I think - my attempt to resolve cognitive dissonance (by choosing This over That) has revealed the truth about my motives.

So, how shall I resolve it? Well, thankfully, there's an Arbitrator who shows me that I should choose That because it's the right thing to do, and then deal with my dodgy way of prioritising things to protect myself from harm.

It's so interesting isn't it, how we mask what is, in preference to what we think is. But then, I wonder, how are we to know the difference?

How indeed.