Per the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language…Revise: 1.To prepare a newly edited version. 2. To reconsider and change or modify.

It’s funny how you can go along pretty much okay with yourself, feeling like your making some headway in your trek toward being a worthy person, one who is kind, does the right thing, works hard and never backs down from the difficult tasks of life. We fool ourselves. I fool myself, get on my figurative high horse and ride about my day thinking I’m pretty decent because I am a vegetarian, oh, and I meditate and well, haven’t drank alcohol in 30-something years or consumed any other mind-altering substance. I’m a “spiritual” person, I help people…ya-da-ya-da-ya-da. Oh, yeah, there’s a lot to get all blown up about when you’re adding up the score.

Then the day comes, oh it’s a sunny day and the birds are singing and the sky is blue and all is la-di-dah and you’re just rollin’ along, being who you are and doing what you do and then, and then it hits-the realization, loud and clear, as if it was blaring out on surround sound: You are a Hypocrite. Oh, yeah, it’s as brutal and unflinching as that. Now I’m switching this conversation to the first person, the I, because now this conversation is going to get specific-about me-about my particular hypocrisy. (The latest in a long string of them, I might add.) It was on the day of my spiritual teacher’s birthday, after a day of getting up early to meditate for two hours, spending the day with friends, in nature, walking, sharing food and talking about this, that and everything. It was the conversation part that stood out for me when I went to bed that night, the realization that several times what I had said about others was not particularly kind, was actually seeing not the best in that person, but their worst, or where they were weak, where they failed.

This month I am facilitating a course on revising poems. This is what this post started to be about. Obviously that went nowhere. I was a paragraph into it and it was stale and stilted. What was really gnawing at me to be written was about revising the self, revising habits, beliefs, perceptions. There is always a “reason” we can find to justify our behavior that takes the world a step or two away from better: what we were taught, how we were treated, what we had to do to survive physically or emotionally. Our past does form us, this is true and, as long as we remain unaware of the effect that it imposes on us, as long as we chose to keep on living with our pain and the pain we cause others, we are stuck in these habits and they run our lives. Once the cat’s out of the box (is that the right expression?), once we are aware, there must be honesty, complete and utter ‘fessing up to the behavior and the thought processes behind the behavior that we perpetuate and believe are a part of who we are. The next steip is to come to the realization that they are not who we are. Then, and only then, can we can revise them effectively.

Oh, boy, was my ego trashed when I confronted it with the evidence: You’re very sly about putting people down. You don’t say it to their face, just in casual conversation. You deny there’s anything wrong with it. Everybody does it. You deny that if the tables were turned you wouldn’t be hurt. You deny the impact on your own consciousness, the toxicity of your words. This is how the Self must talk to the self-without blaming, without condemning, but straightforward and with the mirror set directly in front of the heart and mind so that nothing is slipped under the rug, nothing left out to be excused or mollified. I have never attended an AA meeting but I know enough to get that to cop to the addiction, the habit, is the first step in the process of recovery. Taking responsibility is utterly essential, but it doesn’t stop there. Without meaningful revision of one’s life–making a confirmed effort to amend one’s self through removing the old habit and inserting new responses to situations–eventually the stronger, the more entrenched ego-self will overrule all the good intentions of the higher Self.

Okay, so, I am still in the phase of acknowledging fully the mean-spirited part of my self that continues to insist on staying in the game of my life, insists it’s okay to see less than the best in others and to speak about it. On the plus side, I did make a vow that night, in prayer, in surrender, that from that day forth I would cease to speak unkindly about anyone–to choose instead to either find the best in them and speak of that, or if I could not, to say nothing and to know it was my lack of compassion preventing me, it had nothing to do with anyone else. I’m going on a week with this personal revision. I can say it’s not easy. Truth is, it’s an old groove that I can slip into when the opportunity is there and not even realize what I’ve said until much later. It’s a matter of diligent awareness and concerted effort to stay on track, to stay committed to the process of “preparing a newly edited version” of myself, one that has a lot more to offer and brings myself, and (this is my personal conviction) the whole planet, one millimeter closer to living in peace.