Have you driven one of those newfangled cars with advanced safety features? When your car drifts out of its lane, the steering wheel vibrates so you get back in line. And if you try to merge into a lane without checking your blind spot, the car can deploy the brakes to prevent an accident. These safety features reduce road fatalities and expensive car repairs.
While this is nice for a car, we resist this approach for the rest of life. What if we got nudged before saying something false or cruel? It can be dystopian. Social media algorithms automatically muzzle unfavorable speech. China’s pervasive censorship system is frightening.
But what if the corrective came in love?
When we know someone else has our best interests in mind, it’s easier for us to see what they see. When they show us a blind spot, we know they care. Like Mary Poppins taught us, ‘a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.’
We all have blind spots. If we could see them, maybe we could deal with them. But we don’t even know what they are. If we want to address our blind spots, we need loving friends who can gently encourage us to see more clearly.