What you do is who you are.
People often excuse themselves for habitually doing things they know are wrong, by claiming that the bad things they do are in conflict with the person that they are “deep down”. Some people also minimize the good things they habitually do and see themselves as tainted and inherently bad, even when they choose again and again to do right and make amends when they fail.
But each time you make a choice, you are deciding what kind of person to be.
If you choose to control another person and deny them autonomy, for instance, you are choosing to be an abuser, even if “deep down” you have excuses, justifications, and a belief that this choice is an exception to your “real” personality. Alternatively, if you consistently choose to treat others with respect and care, you are choosing to be a respectful and caring person, even if “deep down” you feel like nothing you do is good enough.
Each choice you make adds to the pattern of who you are; you can change the pattern, but it requires sustained effort or it will only be a blip in your life.
You will never be perfect or irredeemable. The best, kindest people you know have done or said cruel, thoughtless, or bigoted things. The worst, most vicious people you can think of have had moments of kindness and goodness and selflessness. All of us have habits, ideas, ways of speaking that uplift people, and others that harm people. With active work, we can identify these patterns and alter them to make ourselves the kind of people we want to be.
There will always be times when what’s right isn’t clear, or when we fail to live up to our ideals. That’s part of being human. But you can’t insist that people measure who you are as a person by your internal feelings and your excuses – your actual actions, your choices about how you interact with others and with the world around you, are the part of yourself that is most visible and most relevant to others.
The people who love you because you are consistently kind and supportive and respectful are trusting your consistent actions. Even if you sometimes feel like lashing out, each time you choose instead to behave kindly you are actively being the kind of person who is worthy of that trust..
If you do or say things that are abusive, or racist, or misogynistic or transphobic or homophobic or what have you, you are making choices that hurt people; you are the kind of person who hurts people. If you do the work to learn how to start making different choices, you will start to become a different person. However, you cannot demand to be treated as someone who doesn’t hurt people without first doing the work to actually stop.
That starts by recognizing that others are far more affected by your actions than your intentions, and that while intent may explain how you made the choices you did, it can never excuse, negate, or erase them. The only thing you can do is put in the work to start making better choices and building a new pattern of behaviour.
It’s all about actions. What you think or feel or wish will never carry as much weight as the things you actually choose to do.
