On Living With Imperfect People--Including Ourselves

One of the urgent lessons of life is to learn to live with imperfect people—not only with imperfections of others but also with the imperfections in ourselves. It is often true that we don’t even please ourselves, or at least not consistently so. And if we don’t altogether please ourselves, it should be easy for us to understand why often we are not pleased with others.

Life is variable for all of us. Sometimes we are sad, fearful, discouraged, sometimes even when we have no real reason to be. Our troubles trouble us less at some times than they do at others’ not because the troubles are less, but because we are able to live with our troubles some times better than others.

Human problems are complex. There are battles inside ourselves, and battles outside ourselves. The good spirit strives with us, and finds itself in competition with the spirit that tempts us to compromise, to be critical, to be indifferent, to be rebellious, to relax our standards, and do what we shall surely regret.

And since everyone has his struggles, his better days and worse ones, his good impulses and bad ones, his arguments inside himself; since all of us need understanding, forgiveness, encouragement, all of us would do well to try to understand others. And one quality of character most needed in this world is compassion for other people. One of the most important lessons of life is to learn how to live with imperfect people—including ourselves. And if we are not always pleased with us, it should be easy to understand why we are not always pleased with others. “Every man,” said Henry Ward Beecher, ” should have a good-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends.”¹