Are you a hypocrite?

Most people have some ways that they’re inconsistent. That’s the reality of being human. We are complex, contradictory creatures.

It’s easy to point out what another person does that isn’t consistent; it’s much easier to see it in someone else. And there are lots of clickbait headlines and social media posts about the hypocrisy of the other side. They often go viral.

When someone points our inconsistencies to us, though, boy do we get mad! We live in a finite world with infinite choices, which means that we can’t live in perfect accordance with our values. We don’t like to acknowledge those contradictions, but they exist.

I heard a story of a person who wrote a Medium post about visiting his liberal relatives who live in red states and how they don’t do much to recycle or conserve fuel. True, it’s harder for them than the relatives in blue states, but they aren’t making the effort. In the post, he named their behavior as hypocrisy, that they weren’t living up to their professed beliefs. When they read his public post, they felt attacked!

But when we point out other’s inconsistency, we ourselves are being a hypocrite because we aren’t recognizing our own double standards, our own contradictions.

This is a perfect opportunity to give grace—grace for others and grace for ourselves. This means not clicking on those clickbait headlines and not publicizing that attempt to make fun of another’s hypocrisy.  If enough of us do it, we can change our own brains and also get those algorithms to change.

Let’s create a movement to change the algorithms that drive us apart.  Let’s create a grace filled movement instead.