Benefit Of The Doubt

“Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother’s utterances with the fullest and most over-sensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention. She must be encouraged to do the same to him” (The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, 2001, p13).

The demon Screwtape is here teaching his nephew Wormwood on how to turn everyday conversation into a quarrel.

We want to judge ourselves by our good intentions. And we want to judge others by their bad intentions.

If someone is harsh with me, they must be trying to put me down. If I’m harsh with someone else, I’m just helping them grow.

When both parties are committed to this unfair standard, the relationship goes into a downward spiral. When both parties are committed to giving the other the benefit of the doubt, the relationship goes into an upward spiral.

You can’t control the other person, but you can change yourself. You can stop the downward spiral and be willing and ready to start moving upward when the other person is ready.

What do you think?
Joseph