Who hasn't had at least one "zinger" experience with a good old fashion hypocrite? God knows I have; including those experiences I have had with myself...
Hypocrisy isn't just about saying one thing and doing another. It is also about NOT saying what needs to be said in the face of wrongdoing and/or repeated wrongdoing. I think back to a time when I was asked to be involved in a very large project that involved hundreds of hours of planning, implementation, and follow up. Because of my marketing background and experience as a consultant to small business (before I became a psychotherapist that is!)...I was one heck of a fit for this project effort.
My first clue that things were becoming rotten in Denmark occurred when I heard that a couple of interlopers were "upset" that I had already completed some work they had expected to "have the opportunity" to do themselves. Okay. I blew it off because neither one of them was formally included in this project ANYWAY, so how could they be upset over the nothing they had nothing to do with? That was my first mistake. Without realizing it at the time, I was being tested to see what I was made out of...without realizing that the goal was to eventually swallow me whole.
There were additional incidents which rubbed me in several wrong ways of course...but each time I made an excuse to not see what was right before my face. It was easier that way, or so I thought.
It wasn't until several months later when the project was complete that I realized how lax I had been in not confronting their dysfunctional behaviors head on. I had just been too busy doing the work of the project; however, I had also used that fact as a reason to avoid my responsibility towards myself! Yet I learned a lot from what I went through. I learned that remaining silent in the face of inappropriate behaviors is no different than condoning those same behaviors with a smile...just like the hypocrite. I also learned that for the perpetrators of such behaviors, denial wasn't just a river in Egypt..it was a flipping ocean!
Since that time, there have been many changes which shook the status quo in ways I could have never imagined. Which in my own humble opinion was long LONG overdue. High horses were knocked over, walking papers were issued, and the wheat (as they say!) was separated from the chaff...
And that, my friends, was a very good thing.
Until next time...
