Fault-Finding Is Food For The Ego
By
Sumit Paul, New Age Islam
28 March
2023
Nukta
Cheeni Ghiza-E-Ana Hai.
An Urdu
adage
(Fault-finding
is food for the ego)
"
Doosron Mein Khaamiyaan Dhoondhna Taqreeban Har Shakhs Ka Marghoob Shaghl Hai.
"
(Finding
fault with others is almost every individual's favourite pastime)
Dhanpat
Rai, Munshi Premchand
There're
few things the ego delights in more, than correcting other people's mistakes.
One always draws some kind of patronising pleasure when one gets an opportunity
to correct someone. To correct means to show a defect. In fact, unknowingly
most of us have been doing this right from the beginning of our social
intercourse with people around us. What we try to pass off as our genuine
concern for others is actually an unwitting act of correcting an individual.
You immediately feel superior to the person you've found a fault with.
"Nothing
gives us more pleasure than wearing the mantle of a rectifier, " wrote CLR
James in his book " The History of Cricket in the Caribbean."
The ingrained habit of trying to correct someone is much more widespread than
pontificating and sermonising. The overwhelming desire to correct others and
point out mistakes is more acute and active than pontification. The former is
obvious, whereas the latter is subtle. Correction has rudeness and crudeness in
it but pontification is cloaked. "It's always much easier to find mistakes
in others because the eyes which see you, cannot see themselves. Your eyes
don't see its eyelashes. Nor does your officious and ever sniffing nose be
aware of the unsightly hair in it, "succinctly wrote Marcel Proust. "Aap Ne Ye Nahin Kiya, Aap Ne Woh
Nahin Kiya, Aap Ko Ye Nahin Aata, Woh Nahin Aata," life goes in vain
in such petty corrections.
While
learning English at the age of sixteen, every sentence had at least 2-3
mistakes. I admit, I still make mistakes in English. One teacher in England
would always correct me. Initially, I appreciated his 'genuine' concern for
correcting my Iranian English, heavily influenced by Persian and Dari. But it soon
began to get on my nerves. He'd correct me in the presence of all those whose
mother tongue was English. Luckily, a senior teacher came to my rescue and told
that 'rectifier' not to correct my awful English in public.
All these
people on a correction spree deliberately correct you when you're with others.
This is unfair. Refrain from it. We all must curb our overwhelming proclivity
to correct others. When we're all more or less flawed, none of us can dare
correct anyone else.
------
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Sumit Paul
is a researcher in comparative religions, with special reference to Islam. He
has contributed articles to the world's premier publications in several
languages including Persian.
URL: https://newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/fault-finding-food-ego/d/129421
New Age Islam, Islam Online, Islamic
Website, African Muslim News, Arab World News, South Asia News, Indian Muslim News, World Muslim News, Women in Islam, Islamic Feminism, Arab Women, Women In Arab, Islamophobia in America, Muslim Women in West, Islam Women and Feminism