There are times when I am so full of good advice, I can’t stop. Really. I will hold the floor and tell my friend or whatever stranger I am talking to examples and really convincing reason that my proposed course of action is the best.

I would like to say that I used to do this, but that would be kidding myself.

A couple years ago I found myself full of ideas about how other people far and near could improve their situation and run their lives. The thing was I was not doing such a great job of running my own life.

I was tired and unhappy and everywhere I turned there were problems I had to fix.

There is an old saying, whenever you point your finger at someone you have four pointing back at yourself.

I started to see a pattern. All the advice I thought I had for other people—and maybe it was good advice for them!—was actually something I should be listening to myself.

I tried it. As soon as I began to think, “She really can’t seem to get past that particular issue” I would turn it on myself.

Can I get past that very particular issue?

It shut me up, I can tell you that. It seemed like everything I saw in other people was something I was hurting from too.

Jesus said it too. “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?…”

How embarrassing. I wonder if all the people I had been dispensing my gold standard advice to have seen how very flawed I was while saying it.

Before I crawl under the nearest rock to hide my shame, I realize something. The stuff that I’m hiding from myself stick out like a sore thumb in others.

I can USE this tendency.

It can point me like a compass to the stuff I need to focus on.

It is inconceivable how painful it would be to have a whole plank coming out of my eye. And yet I know that I can reset that sort of pain to “it’s normal” and carry on.

But other people’s eye issues will drive me crazy.

OH.

Like I said, my advice is really, really good. I should listen to it.