Giving Me Something to Say

I've been reading Gretchen Rubin's Happiness blog and been moved to comment lately. In a recent post, she quotes Jung:

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” --Carl Jung

Which elicited this from me:

I can't say that it's always true, but I've also found that the things we say to another that they do that they shouldn't...are what we do. I say "we" not just because I write funny; I first noticed that on more than one occasion a close co-worker or friend, if we had a frank airing of grievances would "grieve" at me my exact grievance of them. This made me aware of it and gradually I realized that the things I wanted to tell my husband that he was doing that he should stop...were things that I was doing. It's not always true, but frequently enough that I've found it's a very accessible way to get true insight into my own, uh, foibles.