There’s a version of ourselves we don’t see coming.
It starts innocently enough. We notice something genuinely wrong. We speak up about it. Our observation is accurate, our criticism valid, our concern legitimate. We’re right to care. Right to be bothered. Right to want things to be different.
But somewhere between noticing a problem and becoming preoccupied with it, something happens. The thing we’re observing starts shaping the person doing the observing. We begin looking for evidence of the problem everywhere. We find it, because once you’re looking for something specific, reality cooperates by highlighting it.
Soon we’re not just aware of the problem. We’re defined by our awareness of it. We’ve become the person who always talks about what’s broken, who always sees what’s wrong, who always explains why things won’t work. We think we’re being insightful.
We’re actually becoming bitter.
And the strange thing is, we’re still right about the original problem. The thing we’re criticizing genuinely deserves criticism. But being right about what’s wrong with the world doesn’t prevent us from becoming what’s wrong with ourselves.
This is how bad attitudes develop. Not through sudden transformation into terrible people, but through slow accumulation of legitimate grievances that we never examine for what they’re doing to us while we’re busy examining everything else.
We all do this. It’s not a personal failing. It’s a human tendency. When we encounter real problems repeatedly, we develop patterns of response. These patterns feel like wisdom because they’re based on actual experience. But patterns can outlive their usefulness while still feeling necessary.
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The person who was betrayed develops a pattern of expecting betrayal. The pattern starts as protection, becomes habit, ends as prison. They’re not wrong that betrayal exists. They’re trapped by their vigilance against it.