Self-Searching

There is a seventeenth-century proverb that reads: “Believe no tales from an enemy’s tongue.” But perhaps we can believe our own examination of ourselves. And so, for a moment, let’s do a bit of self-searching on a long list of subjects: If you were choosing someone you had to trust, could you trust yourself? Would you like to meet yourself when you are in trouble? Would you like to be at your own mercy? If other men didn’t put locks on their homes, on their barns, and on their banks, would you ever walk in where you knew you had no right to walk? If there were no accounts, no bonding companies, no courts, no jails, no disgrace⎯none of the usual fears except your own soul inside of you⎯would ever take what you knew you had no right to take? Would you serve a man without influence as fairly as you would a man with influence? Would you pay a person as fair a price for something he was forced to sell as for something he didn’t have to sell? Would you honor an unwritten agreement as honestly as if it were written? If you found a lost article that no one else could possible know you had found, would you try to return it or would you put it in your own pocket? Would you compromise on a question of right or wrong? Do you talk as well of your friends when they aren’t around as when they are? If you made a mistake, would you admit it or would you pretend to be right even when you know you were wrong? Could you be mistrusted as well away from home as you could where you are known? Do you think the world owes you a living or do you honestly know that you should work for what you want? Do you make an earnest effort to improve your performance or have you been hoping for an undeserved improvement in your pay or your position? Do you try to get the job done or have you been loafing along for fear you were doing too much? Would you hire yourself? Would you like to work for yourself? If your partner were to die, would you treat his family as fairly as if he were alive? If he lost his health, would you still deal with him not only justly but also generously? Let’s look again, inside out: Would you like to work for yourself? Would you like to live with yourself? This is admittedly a severe score card. But sometimes it’s a good thing to turn ourselves inside out and look at ourselves as honestly as if we were someone else.