Others are merely mirrors of you

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You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

You may think you have unbiased opinions about other people, but the very definition of opinion is that it’s personal. There’s a reason you have the thoughts and judgments you do. They’re a direct reflection of your internal beliefs.

Hating in contradiction

The more you hate a trait in someone else, the more likely you are avoiding it in yourself.

Carl Jung believed that characteristics in others that bother us are reflections of the parts of ourselves that we deny. Freud referred to it as “projection.” Most people call it “being an asshole.”

Some of the most important truths in life are contradictory on the surface. They seem like impossibilities, yet experience proves them to be obvious over and over again. It isn’t until you look a bit deeper, beneath the surface contradictions, that the real grains of wisdom emerge.