1 Ramadan 1431

Today I am thinking about tawbah, repentance.
The beginning part of the du'a for the onset of Ramadan is full of a lot of self-deprication: Oh God, here I am, a no good, dirty, piece of garbage. I know that You are so kind, You'll even hear me out.
My son said that he didn't like that part of the du'a. It seems to foster a negative self-image, to say the least.
It occurred to me, however, was that this cast a different light on repentance.
We usually think of repenting for specific deeds, our sins. It seems to me, however, there is also a repenting for how we are. I guess there are aspects of everyone that are garbage. We can repent of our vices. We can repent of being inconsiderate, for example, of being insufficiently sensitive to the ways in which we hurt others. We can repent of pride, conceit, selfishness, of having a bad temper, etc.
But in repentance for acts, we need to resolve never to do that again. How can we do that for character traits? You can't just decide not to be insensitive any more. But you can decide to take steps to become more considerate.
Normally, for repentance it is necessary to examine ourselves, and this is usually taken to mean to scan our memory for the sins we have done. However, we can also scan our hearts to inquire what we have become.
As we enter Ramadan, we have an opportunity to start with repentance and to take up the spiritual journey yet again to cleanse ourselves of our vices, bit by bit.