Don’t question reality. Question perception.
Someone says you’re “selfish”. You get defensive.
Someone says you’re “lazy”. You get angry.
Someone says you’re “wrong”. You justify our actions.
Here’s the pattern:
Someones says you’re ________ and you question their perception.
But somehow their perception and your perception aren’t matching up in reality.
But that person, who might be close to you and knows you well, someone you trust and respect has a perception of you that you don’t see, acknowledge or admit to. Then does it really matter that you think their perception is wrong? Are you asking them to conform to what you think your intentions are? But intentions don’t matter if they’re perceiving it as something else. Perception is the transaction, perception is the reality.
And ultimately it usually is the case that their perception is a source of truth, they’re just calling out the bullshit and you don’t like it. That’s the ego getting defensive.