Being an understanding person doesn’t mean you have to agree with everyone

For a long time now, I’ve gone out of my way to view everything and everyone objectively. Naturally, we all bring our own experiences, baggage, fears, loves, views, etc. to the table. And not that everyone always means to, but all of those experiences that have made us who we are… after a while… start to form “glasses” over how we see other people’s actions, words, intentions, assumptions, and so on.

So what I have tried SO desperately hard to do in the last few years is destroy those “glasses” that are naturally made from my own experiences. MEANING, when someone does something that I maybe don’t like or don’t agree with… or when someone hurts my feelings or does something that I don’t understand… I try to not react based on how I would have done things differently, or how I think they acting are crazy or mean or whatever.

I’ve tried to train my brain to instead think, I wonder what they went through or are currently going through for this reaction to happen? What shaped them into being this way? What’s bothering them? How do they think and why? What’s making them happy or motivating them? I wonder if they’re stressed at home? I wonder if they’re suffering from anxiety or depression? What if they just lost someone or something that meant everything to them? I wonder if they just got the best or worst news of their life?

You are the only person who is with you at ALL times. Only you know what you’re really going through and how it’s really affecting you. Even your spouse, closest friends, parents, or children aren’t with you at every moment of your lifetime. Only you know how you feel, why you feel it, and what you went through to think that way (good or bad). Because you know every single experience that has happened to you, you’re able to rationalize certain things that others can’t comprehend.

So with that said, we should give others the same courtesy. Just because one conversation or situation looks really good or really bad on the outside – doesn’t mean that we have the right to sit around and judge it based on all of the time that we were not in their shoes to see the other factors that went into making whatever it is now.

One must choose to be understanding. And if you can’t “understand,” then simply be kind enough to not make a situation that you know nothing about worse. Being an understanding person doesn’t mean you have to agree with everyone or put aside your own values. It simply means that you recognize that everyone is a human at the end of the day – with mountains and valleys, just like you.

Until next time,

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Xo