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The Hypocritic Oath -- Invitation to Write #30

For Writers:

Human, thy name is hypocrite.

Not that any of us can really help it. Most of us have this embedded ideal image of who we would like to be, but the real self can never match the imagined ideal. We are born under the curse of always falling short of the mark; at least that's how many of us in the Christian tradition have been trained.

Recently, my wife observed that even I am human. I gave a piece of advice to my dad, and my wife was quick to point out that it's advice that I don't follow myself. In my mind, when I picture my ideal self, I follow my own advice; but in the real world, I don't always.

Perhaps the only people that aren't hypocrites are those that have managed to remove the quest for the ideal self from their lives. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to completely purge this urge.

I may be a hypocrite, but at least I'm honest about it.

Probably the most famous oath is the Hippocratic Oath for physicians, but what might the Hypocritic Oath look like? Spend some time today developing an oath for hypocrites.

"The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite!" -- Tennessee Williams

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