Writing Assignment 1: Self Deception

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Writing Assignment 1 – Self-Deception

Magi Armany

BUS 515 Organization Behavior and Leadership

For

California Baptist University

Professor Greg Bowden

November 8, 2015
One of life facts that many times truth can be painful to hear. Nobody ever wants to hear that they have a problem in any aspect in life. As humans, by nature we are not as accepting of criticism. We like people who praise us and hate those do not agree with us or criticize us. We tend to be not very welcoming to people when they tell us that we have a problem or we are the problem. “Identify someone with a problem, and you’ll be identifying someone who resists the suggestion that he has one” (Arbinger, 2010). The natural response to such accusation is to disagree or …show more content…

On personal level, with respect to the authors’ ideas about self-deception, I cannot help but think of the Pharisees. In the bible, the Pharisees were a famous example of religious self-deception. Jesus was never happy with the Pharisees. They always viewed themselves as better than everyone. Jesus always confronted them saying, “On the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matthew 23:28). Sometimes I wonder if I am deceiving myself. Let me explain, I am a Christian person. I believe in Jesus, go to church regularly, say my prayers, and pay my tithe. You can say I am pretty average Christian. Sometimes I look at people who do drugs or live wicked lives and condemn them for their actions. I find myself thinking in my heart how lucky am I that I am not like them as they are going to hell for sure. I even went to the lengths of cutting some interpersonal relationships with friends because they were not a Christians as I am. Sometimes, I even struggled making friendships with non-Christians which caused me problems on personal and work level. I come from Egypt, which is an Islamic country and as Christians we are considered minority. To deal with Muslim neighbors, coworkers, friends, was a challenge. They do not have the same beliefs and some of them tend to be radical which made it hard for me to work with. I choose to cut ties and not try to reach out just to avoid connections. Such thinking makes me feel that I am better than others, but that is very far from the truth. Yes, I do not do drugs or live a wicked life, but I still commit sins. My judgmental thoughts and self-deception is a sin itself. I stand in the church singing in the choir and give testimonials, but whom I really deceiving. The person I am presenting in the church is far from the sinful true me. I think they are the problem

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