I Realize I Have Many Flaws And Want to Improve Myself

The Yomiuri Shimbun

12:00 JST, September 15, 2024

Dear Troubleshooter:

I’m a company employee in my 60s and live with my wife and daughter. I’m looking for advice for myself.

I think I bring down the mood in my office. I often point out others’ faults and preach at them about how to improve.

Sometimes, I cannot help bursting into anger, yelling, “How can you not understand this?” As a result, many colleagues have kept their distance from me.

I try to stay away from others and not get too involved in their affairs, but I have not been able to do this well.

Each time I behave like this, I fall into self-hatred.

I often see people seeking advice in this column saying they get annoyed by certain people, and I’m absolutely one of those people they would complain about.

There is a proverb that says a fool’s nature cannot change until death, and I think that’s true for me.

I want to resolve this. I need your advice.

V, Kanagawa Prefecture

Dear Mr. V:

There are people who harass others by, for example, persistently accusing or verbally abusing them. These types of people blindly believe that they are always right.

Your words and deeds seem to be similar. But you have the self-awareness to know you did bad things to those around you. You are not the kind of offender in harassment cases who is nonchalant about the harm they caused.

As you can look back on yourself objectively, it means you can change your nature.

It is not good for you to hold on to these hard and painful feelings. You should not struggle alone, so I would like you to rely on help from third parties.

In short, you need help from experts such as psychiatrists or counselors.

As the first step, I recommend you seek medical advice to confirm whether you have a psychological condition or a developmental disorder.

After that, you need to find a better way to keep proper distance psychologically from others and how to control your emotions with the help from those professionals.

You also need to let your workplace know what you’re going through.

The people around you do not know about the regret and remorse you feel. Can you apologize sincerely to those you believe you have emotionally hurt? How about doing this as a way to start over?

Tomomi Fujiwara, writer