As I grow older, meet more and more people and gain a deeper perspective on how humans operate, certain basic assumptions of Mussar become better defined, or even redefined. This is what age and experience bring with them - clarifications and delineation of what is central and what is peripheral.
I now think that there are two basic points that are central in Mussar. One is the conviction that our thinking and assumptions are riddled with bias and must constantly be suspected and challenged. The other one is the equally strong conviction that growth is a process of continuous advancement in internalizing the first point and that we always fall and rise, fail and rise. Expressed differently one would call it humility.
I met many different personalities and types in the past few decades - thousands. That's a lot of people. Being a little dogmatic I say that very few of them would ever admit that they were wrong, never mind apologize. Few people have the confidence and committment to the truth sufficient to overcome the bias to their self-perception. However they divide into five groups:
1.Those who would never admit or apologize but admit that they were wrong to themselves. This groups subdivides into those who will in some way communicate to others that they understood that they are wrong, but not in words, and those who adamantly insist that they were and are right.
2. Those who will not admit to themselves or others that they were and are wrong but will change their behavior under the pretext that circumstances have changed.
3.Those who will not admit or change anything - ever.
4.Those who will not admit but will accomodate.
5.Those who will admit but partially, or with excuses and assign blame to people or situations.
I used to see Mussar as an armamentarium of techinques: mussar study, chanting, contemplation, mussar vaad, mashgiach etc and goals, self-reconstruction in middos. I now think that the particular techniques that mussarniks used were simply the ones that they discovered and ones that were available to them. If a different technique works, be it drawn from psychology or self-help literature, be pragmatic and use it. It is the goals that matter.
The base for any progress in self-improvement is humility. In every field, assessment comes before intervention. If you can't assess, you can't fix. Ability to admit and confess is one of the central points that undergird success in Mussar.
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