“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” – Plato
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in the last few months, if not year, is that having harsh, grudge-like judgements of people is rarely a good thing. Nor is holding up people on a pedestal.
Our judgements of people, whether positive or negative, can be quite ridged, even blind. We see someone how we want to see them, and choose to see their actions (and Tweets) as “evidence” to help hold up our opinions as them. We can skew anything and everything someone does to fit in to our view of them, no matter their intentions.
What I’ve learned, both for the positive and the negative, is that you really never know what someone is or can be like simply because we have such a firm judgement of how they are.
Thanks to social media and technology, we think we know how someone “really” is, or is “really” like. But just because we know where someone is eating dinner or what they’re watching on TV, we really have no idea what’s going on in their personal life..
They could be going through a break-up or dealing with an abusive boyfriend. They could be cheating on their partner. They could be going through a divorce. They could even be sick, or grieving the loss of a loved one. And we’re naive enough to think that just because it’s not blasted on Facebook, it must just not be happening.
Plato once said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle,” and as uncomfortable as this may make some of us...for the most part, it’s true. Sure, there are a few genuine bad seeds out there. There are malicious, nasty folk who wish you harm. However, the ratio of the nasty to the good, the hurtful to those who are just doing the best they can is pretty unbalanced. I am trying to believe that there are more good people out there who genuinely don’t mean any harm, than there are manipulative psychos running around searching for a back to stab.
For the most part, people really are just doing the best they can. They may not be perfect, they may be a bit emotionally and socially unaware, and may choose to do things we may not choose to do, however, they’re not bad. And they certainly don’t deserve for us to treat them as though they're unworthy of breathing the same air as us.
We all make mistakes. We’re rude or hurtful to people because having compassion can be time consuming. It doesn’t really fit into the self-promoting, competitive society that we’ve found ourselves in, does it?
But what I’ve found most surprising is that it’s not that hard to give someone a second chance, or take the time to say hello to someone you usually avoid waving to. By no means do I think we should all join hands and sing “We Are The World” – I just think that being a bit more compassionate and accepting that not everyone is the same as us is much better for the world – never mind your own karma - than holding nasty grudges and being quick to judge others all of the time.
The same goes for holding people up on a bizarrely high pedestal. For all of the people I’ve unfairly and harshly judged, I’ve also made out those I look up to or enjoy being around to be almost god like. This can happen when you start to believe that there are more bad people out there than good – you make the good people in your life out to be a bit Mary Poppins - practically perfect in every way.
You excuse bad behaviour. They cancel on you but HEY! It’s SARAH, and SARAH can always be forgiven! Of course, there’s nothing wrong with loving your friends and thinking they’re amazing and praiseworthy – but being so wrapped up in the idea of what we’d like someone to be means we’re not seeing who they really are. How can you celebrate and appreciate how someone actually is, when we’re so busy trying to shape how and who we want them to be in our own mind?
Sometimes, you just need to accept that even the people we think are golden make mistakes. Sometimes, they really, really fuck up, yet can be forgiven. And then there are times when we find that the people we once looked up to are actually really, really nasty.
It can be a hard pill to swallow.
Being compassionate to those we once believed to be immortal is just as important as forgiving the acquaintances we once judged so harshly. It’s also important to look at what they’ve done with unbiased eyes: are you disappointed in them because they failed to measure up to your high standards? Or are you disappointed in them because they’ve genuinely hurt you or someone close to you?
Having a bit more compassion and a bit more clarity as you make your way throughout your life can make a very big difference. You may never know the difference it’s made, as we’ll all continue to soldier on, quietly fighting our own battles – but trust that somehow, some way, being kinder to both yourself, your friends, and even those you wouldn’t consider to be a friend will make a difference. After all, a quiet difference is not necessarily insignificant, it’s simply just a more subtle, and graceful affair that happens behind closed doors (and off the Internet).
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