Most of you who are listening probably know that I'm a longtime recovering alcoholic, and that that was a particularly significant part of my life trajectory. One of the things that was really incredibly valuable was therapy on the front end. I had a really, really good therapist and while I didn't believe in therapy at the time, I was desperate enough that I believed in therapy in that instance.

Well, after a few years of that therapeutic work and getting sober, I came in one day just exasperated as I could be. I announced to the therapist that I would be so very grateful when I was no longer compulsive.

She laughed at me. Not the kind of laugh that shamed me, but the kind of laugh that told me that I was missing something here.

She said, "Listen, your compulsivity is probably baked into your personality. It's unlikely to significantly change. Our goal is to steer your compulsive behavior towards healthy compulsions."

I remember a moment of clarity. "Oh, that makes so much sense. I made the mistake of thinking that I (and you) were going to have to be different people.

Well, sorry to tell you that there are big parts of us that are just not very malleable. So in the end, what we have to do is reach some kind of a reasonable reconciliation with ourselves. There are some things about us that just are the way they are. And of course, that's true of everyone else.

So if we're gonna give ourselves some slack, because we are who we are, and we have the tendencies we have, then that's true of others. We've got to offer them some grace as they say, or some compassion, or some kind of consideration. You'll do much better to make peace with it. And a little bit of self-forgiveness will go just as far as forgiving the other person.