Do you do this?

For example. My kids fight. My 6yo DS says "I hate my brother!!!" My 3yo is a terrible stirrer. I reply "I know you must really hate what your little brother has done, but you still love him don't you?" I help him separate the act from the person.

I think we ALL are capable of good and bad acts. As I grow older I find that I am tending to avoid defining people by what they do TODAY. I know full well that some days I am a very industrious person... so I could define myself as a hard working "good" person. Ok, so not today Today I am a lazy "bad" person who won't fold her Laundry Mountain! So... I don't consider myself a Good or a Bad person. I am just a person capable of both good and bad acts. I could look over my life and weigh both ends of the scales and try to determine if I have done more good things than bad things... I dunno what that would come up with, I'd hope it could prove that I was a Good Person... maybe not. But say it weighed badly in my favour... say I have actually spent more time being Bad/Lazy/Selfish etc. Do I deserve that label for the rest of my life? I suppose lots of people would say yes... unless I did something that they deemed completely heroic and turned up on the news after saving a baby from a burning house??? Maybe then I could call myself Good once and for all???? Hmmm.... well until I decide to pour Round-Up all over the neighbour-from-Hells favourite rose bush i guess.

Anyhow.... I think that from now I am not going to bother thinking of people as Bad or Good. Not even myself. "I'm a person who is capable of good and bad actions" and that's pretty much it. Same applies to everyone else.