Leadership and Self-Deception Reflection Essay Example

one of the scenarios that kept my interest in reading further into the book. Anatomically I cannot attend to the specific needs of my boy in the middle of the night in the same manner as my wife.

However, when my help is needed, I find myself stammering slowly with a grumpy attitude, which at times is never seen because the lights are rarely turned on and I try not to vocalize my ridiculous attitude. I understand that self-betrayal starts with a feeling, whether it is a good or bad feeling, and then bifurcates depending on the decisions to honor or withdraw the feeling and end up with a plethora of negative consequences. The positive effects of honoring the feelings are of course rewarding, but it at times is easier to betray ourselves and suppose we are the victim.

What intrigued me were the justification factors on both sides of the arguments that arise after self-deception. I never thought of the very thing I do as categorized as how I see myself when arguments rise in my marriage. When I am in the wrong with my wife, (which is often) I do see myself as the innocent one that works hard, tried to be fair, and tries to do what is best for both my wife and son. I do see my wife at this moment as someone who does not understand the way I would normally perceive myself, which is completely wrong.

I see it, understand, and realize that it makes perfect sense to never justify myself after an in-the-box conversation, because as we know it, communication cannot get me out of

that box. Throughout the text of the book, I kept thinking of circumstances in my life as with a few I have briefly aforementioned. I have recognized that as I begin conversations with those around me being in the box, it can pull that other party to join the conversation trapped in the box itself, which then becomes a blame-game of justification that goes back and forth.

What I did think about, is if I was in a conversation with someone who spoke with me in their box, and I was outside of the box, that would be harder to keep composure so as to not get myself trapped in the conundrum of self-gratification and justification. At this moment in my life, I am occupied with a lot of circumstances that require my full attention and I aware that a balance in things is the best I can do.

I know my wife or any other person who requires my utmost attention could find something I am not doing as well as I could be, but fortunately for me, these recent circumstances have had no such reciprocities. I believe the way a person acts is partially attributed to the past and present events in a person’s life and could motivate them to react to communicative relationships in unpredictable ways. I have a wonderful family that I love with all my heart, I have an amazing career with the SLCPD Crime Lab, and I am finishing my degree and can see that light at the end of the tunnel.

There are times that I do not think of all the good things that

I have, but there is never a day that passes by me when I do not take advantage of the very things that are defining me as a person. As I have stated, I do work with people that I would have a hard time trusting, but I know that I have to treat them as people and not objects. That is difficult, and I believe that is why this may be a difficult social issue in balancing what is morally correct versus what our first instincts motivate the majority of us to do, and that is to think about our own personal needs and gratifications.

When we engage in conversations/actions of which have started in the box, trying to change the people around us is difficult because we are already trying to make ourselves look better, all the while justifying that what we say is the best route to go, thus leading us into an ethnocentric mind-set. I believe being ethnocentric belongs in the box, because it is a descriptive word for a “my way or the high-way” attitude which allows no room for variance on the other end. With the fast-paced society we live in today, it is easier to be in the box, to not see people around us as people with desires, needs, dreams, and challenges.

We are a society, at least for the most part that spends our time on the computer, phones, and nodding our heads up and down to the information released by the media on the television. For me, I find myself being in and out of the box of self-deception in various circumstances. It

is easier to be out of the box with people I personally know and communicate with on a daily basis, unless you just woke up me in the middle of the night and I haven’t had a change to reach my final stage of sleep. Following the prior sentence, I would have added an emoticon depicting a round yellow smiley face, but this is a paper, not a social media post.

Social media itself is making it harder to interact with people face-to-face, but so much easier express opinions that at times are misconstrued by the receiver. The comforting words towards the end of the book spoke loud to me, because it makes sense. I am not trying to be a perfect person, but I am trying to be a good husband, father, employee, and co-worker, and that is good enough for me. It is easy to look for the boxes being held by others with which I am engaged in conversation, but it would be to my benefit if I paid no attention to that, thus making it less likely to slip and end up in my own deceptions.

The most important thing is to not become upset after having placed myself in the box, but to be patient with myself as I try to implement what I have learned in my life for the benefit of both myself and those around me. I do not see the snare of self-deception magically disappearing from my life any time soon, but I do see that as I am more mindful of attributes that can make me happier, it will gradually become habitual.