4-to-7 Month Old Infant: Beware of Insincerity

When you determine your life with integrity, you consistently observe your own inconsistencies and look at them honestly, without apologies. You want to have truth in yourself. You want to see truth others. By looking at your own insincerity, you mature beyond it. When you identify it in others, they are less able to influence you.

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Approaches to reducing insincerity in yourself:

1. Be aware of situations in which you expect more from others than you do from yourself. Pin down the areas of your greatest insincerity, many tame areas where you are emotionally involved. Do you expect more from your significant other than you do from yourself? From your colleagues? From your children?

2. Prepare a list of beliefs that are significant to you. Then recognize those moments in which your conduct is inconsistent with those beliefs. Understand that what you actually believe is implanted in what you do, not really in what you say. What does your behavior tell you about yourself?

Approaches for noticing insincerity in others:

1. Notice the people who surround you. Start to evaluate the extent to which they state one thing and then do another. Match their words to their actions. One example is to observe how many times people assert they love someone who they condemn behind the person’s back. This is a commonplace and a demonstration of mistaken faith.

2. Consider the individuals you are closest to—your colleagues, significant other, children, or friends. To what degree do you notice insincerity or integrity in these relationships? To what extent do they say what they mean and mean what they say? What problems are caused by their insincerity?