As long as you’re going to steal other people’s good and bad qualities and think about them all the time, steal their good ones. See what other people are doing that sets a good example. Take that as a lesson for yourself.

"The second precept [for the mind] is against stealing: This refers to stealing other people’s bad qualities and thinking about them all the time, without asking their permission to take their bad qualities to think about. You just take them. And that’s a kind of stealing. What happens is that you clutter up your mind with all kinds of garbage. As long as you’re going to steal other people’s habits or behavior, steal their good ones. See what other people are doing that sets a good example. Take that as a lesson for yourself. If you’re going to look at their mistakes or their bad habits, reflect back on yourself. You see their bad habits. This is what those habits look like from the outside. If you have the same habits, that’s what they look like. Use their bad habits as a mirror. Check and see if you have any of those yourself. But if you don’t have those habits, you don’t have to take them from them. You’d just be cluttering up your mind with garbage."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Five Precepts for the Mind"

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