Progress not perfection for me on this one, So much better than when I was out in the madness, and you?

This perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one, permeates human affairs from top to bottom.

That phrase has really helped me...still working on it...but keenly aware of it

Rationalisation,is like Masturbation you only end up screwing yourself.

Rude maybe but true.

God Bless...

Lionel

Thanks G. Another great post. "Check your motives" has been what I tell myself before I speak or type. I have had some good friends call me on my bullshit enough that I am learning to examine it myself. It's difficult. I am also still a work in progress. It is gratifying though because I do feel my own progress here.

This has always been a big one for me. It is very easy to justify my actions and assign good motives to them when actually something completely different, that I am not always aware of, is going on.

It is a constant growth process through inventory, meditation and in the input of other people who can often be more objective about me than I can and love me enough to tell me truths that I cant see or accept myself.

A big rationalisation I realised I did was to explain some of my behaviour on the basis that it was the way it was because I cared about someone when actually that was not my primary motivation at all. My primary motivation was to try and control and manage my own fear. This wasnt an easy thing to accept because I was again faced with my self centredness but in seeing it I can now do something about it.

This is perhaps my biggest flaw...also know as bullshit...no matter how we present it ..it is still cow manure. When you have spent your life rationalizing its often hard to even recognize it which makes it even more dangerous. We need trusted friends and family members to call us on it.

Just a thought--Rationalization it part of are thinking problem.
For those of you that think you had a thinking problem before a drinking problem like me.

Poobear's words ring true for me. My best thinking (rationalization) got me in the rooms. It could get me right back out PDQ. The reprieve is just daily...

like everyone else here im still a work in progress on this one..where my drinking and druggings concerned i have no rationalization left for it..it became untolerable for me but my rationalizations which meaning my thinking problems still there with other areas in my life...example in class last week i convinced my teacher she gave me more homework than anyone could possibly do..she wound up aplologizing and gave us more time..my peers were proud of me but i later admitted 2 them and they me..if we werent bs'ing around when we got home it wouldve been done...thing is realization of rationalization leads us to a bridge we can work on and its by no means an overnite thing..great post gjm.

You know -- being aware that we are BSing when we do it is HUGE. Sometimes it may be an immediate awareness and other times it may surface when we inventory. It is amazing that behind every one of our drunks we can find this crippling defect in the shadows. As God reveals active rationalization in my life, I am learning to go the opposite direction -- this madness can occur while sober. I am so grateful that it is not taking me over, today.

Like many others, I too, am a work in progress. God's grace, mercy, and power giving me the strength to make the corrections in my thinking and living. I never could do it alone.

Thank God that the goal is to make progress and not perfection.

Great post!!!!

Darrell