“Above all else” is doing a lot of work in this lesson.
I want to see—but I also want the conversation to go my way. I want the other person to understand my point, acknowledge what they did, and respond in a way that confirms I was right to feel hurt.
Sometimes I want those things more than I want to see.
I recognize this when I rehearse a conversation before having it. In my version, I say exactly the right thing. The other person finally understands. They may even apologize with a level of insight they have never previously demonstrated.
By the time the actual conversation begins, I’m not listening for truth. I’m listening for the lines I already assigned them. If they respond differently, I become frustrated—not only because we disagree, but because they are ruining the scene I prepared.
That is not seeing. It is directing.
Seeing requires me to meet the person actually in front of me rather than the one I constructed in my mind. They may still disappoint me. They may not apologize or understand. I may still need to say something difficult or make a decision about the relationship.
But if I want to see above all else, I have to notice more than the evidence supporting my conclusion. I may recognize fear beneath their defensiveness. I may see how much of my reaction belongs to an older wound. I may discover that I’m asking this conversation to settle something no other person can settle for me.
Seeing can be inconvenient. It may cost me a grievance I have carefully maintained or an identity built around being the one who was wronged. Sometimes we protect pain because it tells us who we are.
Vision waits until I recognize that what I’m holding is no longer giving me what I thought it would. It looks beneath appearances, recognizes fear without attacking it, and allows me to tell the truth without deciding that anyone’s worth is on trial.
Most importantly, it allows me to see myself without guilt. Beneath the habits, defenses, mistakes, and fear, something whole remains untouched.
Part of me wants peace, and part of me still wants to win. At least now the conflict is visible. When I cannot yet choose vision, I can become willing to want it.
Above all else, I want to see.