When are good intentions an excuse?

Have you ever heard the expression: “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions!”? I suspect it has largely fallen out of favour, which is a pity as it is a great way to start a conversation about a common cause of conflict: the difference between intent and impact.

Children understand this quite well.  Any child in trouble for breaking something instinctively knows that if (s)he can convince the grown ups there was no harm intended, any punishment for the damage done will almost certainly be less. So we all know that motivation matters, but we also all know even a good motivation can have disastrous consequences, so then the question is, how do we deal with situations like this?

If a child was trying to help, but instead caused damage or harm, would we “let them off” completely?  If not, why not? And if so, why wouldn’t we respond the same way to an adult in a similar situation? One answer might be: we rather hope adults will be better at foreseeing consequences, they should know more, they should have learned and in particular we expect them to give at least some thought to how their actions might impact on others – and take some responsibility.

This is the crux of the matter, and a common cause of disputes between couples in particular – we want the one we love to understand us, and take responsibility if they hurt us. One time these perfectly reasonable desires get us into trouble is during an argument when our real intent is to make the other person realise how frustrated and hurt we are. Unfortunately, all too frequently, the impact our words and actions have on them is a total mismatch – they get hurt, which means they focus on themselves instead of us!

The solution is simple enough, it just means thinking before acting (or speaking) – which is why most of us don’t find it that easy. A great question to ask yourself is: “What will be the likely impact?” Or, if you are still trying to figure out how much responsibility you should take for the hurt your well intentioned act had, you might like this quote by the Dalai Lama:

“Practice kindness whenever possible. It is always possible.”

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