I “need” to write one (technically, no one is forcing me to, but I should because I’ve been a less than adequate communist IRL, as much as ill make excuses in my head [nothing horrible, im not a snitch or anything]) but I’ve never written one before.
Is there a standardized way or format of doing this? Or is it simply dependent on the person and the severity of their lapse? Should the focus be on the lapse or should it be on steps to rectify my behavior, or both? Should I attempt to explain why I acted in certain ways (not excusing them, but just explaining why I did what I did so I and others know what went wrong)? Should I not be asking this?
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I agree with this. Another way to consider it is like you are a scientist doing experiments. Some attempts at certain ways of being did not work, so it can be worth examining why. This can be difficult to apply to yourself though because many of us are going to have some kind of defensive instinct going on, so there is a temptation to either rationalize away mistakes without a need to change, or to do the self flagellation thing where you put yourself down as a person and expect too much in order to assuage guilt or shame. In order to get past that, it may be necessary sometimes to get outside perspectives (keeping in mind that they have their own biases too, but at least their view can help you piece together a closer to empirical view of who and what you are in the world to others - edit: and importantly, I emphasize “to others” because the point here is not that you are XYZ to everyone in all conditions, but to understand better what you are in a certain context… taking it as universal could confuse and cause you to take on contextual criticisms as an unchangeable personality trait you have).
