The Hypocrisy Conundrum

There is a pattern within our human behavior that I have long been equally amused and stumped by.

My amusement is sourced from the universality and predictability of the setup. In nearly every human life I have been around long enough, I have encountered this duality play out in real time. I include myself in this list.

My confusion, or perhaps it might more aptly be labeled a curiosity, is a question of where to go from here. Because, once I point this out to you, you will see it everywhere you go as I do too. And while you may feel excited to have spotted it, and may even share in on the aforementioned feeling of humor, once that all subsides, the question of what to do with this new awareness will still remain.

What is the awareness to which I am referring? I think it’s time for me to share it with you now. It consists of two seemingly contradictory truths - item one and item two. Perhaps, for the sake of clarity we should give it a name, even if only temporary.

Can you tell I’m stalling?

I don’t know why.

Let’s get to it.

Most people have a distaste for hypocrisy in others.
Most people want to believe that they themselves can change and grow.

How do these two statements create a conundrum, or even a pattern? Perhaps you have spotted it already, and perhaps you have not.

To highlight the interplay between these two truths, I will now share two stories - one seemingly more inconsequential than the other - to highlight what I mean and why I’m bringing this up.

French Fries For Days

First - a light, mildly trivial story.

I recently went on a trip to Paris with a friend where one our collective goals was to eat a lot of great food. And we did! We ate all kinds of cuisines and all kinds of food within the french cuisine. It was delightful and adventurous.

However, this friend also shared with me an anecdote about his childhood that, given the setting, actually really surprised me.

As it turns out, he had been an extremely pick eater in his youth - to the point where for a few months when he was seven years old, he consumed exclusively french fries.

Exclusively french fries! This is not so much odd behavior for a seven year old, but for this person in front of me chowing down on escargot, this bit of information seemed so strange.

I started wondering - how did he grow out of being such a picky eater. Did it happen naturally? Was there something that pushed him to change? How quickly did this shift occur?

None of these questions were really of any consequence to me. All of this was so far in the past. But it was fun to marvel at the change and growth that had occurred in the first portion of one’s lifetime.

I wonder what his 7 year old self would say if he saw the food being eaten today.

Growth can be so fun and so light, can’t it?

I’m sure you have things that you’ve grown out of over time as well.

I’m going to refrain from dissecting too much here, because in such a fun story, there is little to seriously comment on. But why I shared this example will make much more sense after my next story.

I can’t believe THEY said THAT

I think that it’s an interesting experience to witness change in a fellow adult human. Unlike with children, the changes we experience as adults tend to begin and unfold mostly within the mind’s perspective. We may not realize a monumental change is unfolding before our eyes.

Additionally, as adults - in our professional and our personal lives - so many more of our words and our actions have consequences that take on their own journeys far beyond our control.

For example, there may have been a time where you were facing great personal difficulties with little to no healthy coping skills. However, you may have also been a manager or boss during that time period. Since then, you may have grown significantly in the areas of stress and emotional management. Your reality has changed.

However, your possibly unhealthy actions towards your employees at that time became a part of their reality as well as yours. And no matter how much growing you do, their reality will continue to play out under the realm of their control. Even if that reality includes a past version of you.

It’s complicated.

Anyways, story #2:

A few months ago, I had a client come to me in a lot of upset around a post they had just seen online from a coach they used to work with years ago.

This coach was touting the importance of neutral communication and this client was enraged.

Why? Well, when this client had worked with this coach, they experienced the coach’s communication as anything but neutral. They had tangible example after tangible example of this coach taking things personally, and infusing their own anxiety and anger into the mix.

I understood the client’s frustration. For sure I did. They felt that the reality of their experience with this coach was being directly challenged or contradicted.

Their initial instinct was to label this coach a hypocrite.

“How could THEY say THAT when they do the complete opposite? It’s so hypocritical.”

While I conceded that the statement and behavior may technically be hypocritical, I wondered to my client if that was ultimately such a bad thing. This client had spent so much time verbally yearning for this previous coach to see the error of their past ways and to grow in their communication skills.

If this coach had grown, or was even in the process of growing, wouldn’t their new realizations and growths read as hypocritical to this client?

My client agreed and then quickly confessed the real issue at hand.

“If this coach has grown, why am I still stuck with the fallout of their past behavior? That’s not fair.”

My client was angry. And rightfully so. But that is, dear reader, a conversation to bring up here another day.

For now, I will complete this story, and move on to my point.

Hypocrisy - The Likely Scapegoat

Most people have a distaste for hypocrisy in others.

Most people want to believe that they themselves can change and grow.

But here’s the thing.

The act of growth is inherently hypocritical to the past versions of yourself.

In order to evolve, the kid who said they would never eat anything but french fries needs to reach for that piece of broccoli for the very first time.

In order to do better, the coach whose own unhealthy passive aggressive tendencies bled into their client experience needs to concretely recognize and adopt what healthy communication tactics look like.

Am I saying that all hypocrisy means that a person is growing? That it’s actually always a good thing? Absolutely not. No way. No.

But what I am saying is that often times we make hypocrisy the issue when the real issue may be a million other more subterranean, insidious things.

We may say that the big issue with that politician is that they are hypocritical, when the real issue is their consistency of hypocrisy, their unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions, and their flippant disregard for the effects of their behaviors.

We may say that the big issue with that online coach is that they are hypocritical, when the real issue is their purposefully predatory business practices, their unwillingness to hear any critique, and their blatant use of cult-like mind control tactics alongside flat out lies.

Hypocrisy can of course, be an issue. But I want to propose it is oftentimes not THE issue. And to act like it is the only problem essentially perpetuates the problem itself.

When existing alongside humility, work ethic, constant self examination, and radical responsibility - momentary hypocrisy can oftentimes be a sign of growth and evolution, which is something we all want, at least for ourselves.

The issue is, when we see any and every form of flip flopping or perceived hypocrisy as immediately bad, we close ourselves off from the greater context. We are more likely to stunt our own growth and engage in acts of destructive hypocrisy ourselves. We are less likely to see the issue beneath the hypocrisy and be able to affect real change.

So what then, does one even do with this?

I will speak frankly.

When you are on the receiving end of someone else’s hypocrisy, it can feel like a real pain in the ass.

By all means, feel that annoyance. I do! But then, if you’re willing…

I implore you to extend compassion to any part of you that is terrified of being perceived as a hypocrite. If you are growing, it’s going to happen at some point or another, even if only for a minute.

I wonder if it might be possible to investigate even further, from a place of more calm, why exactly that person’s hypocrisy has really gotten to you. We are surrounded by hypocrisy. We contain multitudes. What is it about this particular situation that really has you going.

What I am endeavoring to point out with this conundrum is that when we reach hypocrisy, label it as the ultimate enemy in a huff, and stop critically reflecting on ourselves or others at that point - we miss the whole iceberg in front of us.

We make it scary for ourselves to change our minds. We preemptively judge what is occurring based on limited information. We climb upon our high horse only to realize it is a statue, and we can’t actually even go anywhere on it.

I’m not suggesting that you eliminate the distaste you feel for hypocrisy. But if you, like so many of us, want to live in a world where change and growth is possible, I encourage you to cozy up to that distaste. Get comfortable with it. Ask it questions.

And see what else it has to teach you.