This one is pretty easy and it's one that a few people even listed as 'hating' about themselves.
I love that I am empathetic and emotional. I am tenderhearted and ALWAYS try to think the best of people.
When someone shares a story of some wrong-doing whether it's something someone said, a tale of family disagreement, or an example of how people are "playing" the government system, I always see the other side - the side of understanding.
Call it naive, but I prefer to think the best of people. In general, I believe that everyone is just doing the best they can whether that means they're on welfare, need mortgage assistance, require subsidized school lunch, or just went crazy parent on their three year old. I don't know their entire life story nor do you. Therefore, I have NO right to pass judgment on their choices.
That person on welfare may be working three jobs and still struggling to put food on the table. That friend of a friend of a cousin who required mortgage assistance and now lives in a bigger house than I do for a smaller mortgage payment? He may have lost his job just when he thought things were going well. That first grader who gets free school lunch everyday? It's a dollar and seventy-five cents to feed a KID. Does it really matter? And that parent, who just went off on their three year old in the parking lot because he wouldn't stop talking? She may have just struggled through a horrendous grocery trip in which that 3 year old angel grabbed everything within sight off the shelf but she had to persevere because groceries needed to be purchased before she picked the 6 and 8 year old up from school, and the heater repairman is supposed to arrive between noon and 5 and he may already be there and heaven-help-her if she has to reschedule for a date three weeks from now.
You just don't know.
So, I choose to be empathetic. I choose not to imagine the worst. I choose to offer understanding, assistance, hope for a better future, and even -- forgiveness. I HAVE to think the best of people.
Without it, I don't think I could get up in the morning.
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4 comments:
This is something my friend Susan taught me in high school. You never know someone's entire story.
So true.
I'm with you--people who go through life, thinking the worst of people, always suspicious--I find they are terrible company to keep. Empathy rules.
Awesome. That's one of my favorite quotes... attributed to Plato but I'm 99% certain it didn't come from him: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
You just never know!
I love this about you, too!
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