The flaw that bugs you most in your friend might be one you’d recognize in your own reflection.

Irritation is unusually precise. The habits that go through you fastest are often ones you have practiced yourself and worked to hide, so you spot them from across a room. It is not that you are the same person. It is that you know the shape of the thing intimately.

When someone gets under your skin this week, pause and ask where you have done a version of it. Answer honestly, then decide whether to say anything at all. The annoyance often loosens on its own once you stop pretending it is unfamiliar.