Have you ever noticed how sometimes someone has that one bad personality trait which overshadows all the other good characteristics he/she has? This side of them may come to the fore very rarely but when it does, it lingers in our minds long after. Whenever I have observed this, I used to feel sad that their one bad attribute eclipsed everything else they did and they weren’t even aware of it.

But what was more revealing was when I had this same observation said about me once. I went into denial mode, confident that none of my qualities, no matter how irksome, could ever reach that level of aggravation. And I believed this for a long time. And then one day, I was contemplating on how a person could be so oblivious to this truth about oneself and it struck me that I was being one of those people myself.

Nobody behaves poorly knowing that it is bad. We do it believing that we are justified in our actions while being so blinded by our self-righteousness and conceit that we can’t open our eyes to see how it is affects others around us. Recognising one’s fault is the first step in the ongoing journey to better ourselves.