We live our lives thinking we understand other people, how they feel, why they do the things they do, and how it would be to walk in their shoes.
Living under this impression, also makes us feel almost justified in passing judgments about what they should do, and not do; how they should be, and not be -forgetting that we can never know how it is to be that person.
We think we understand, but we don't -we confuse the map for the territory -and so we project onto them just so we can then judge our own projections and feel good about ourselves.
We might hold very strong opinions about people we never actually met in person -forgetting that it might take years or more to really know a person- and even then you cannot really know.
Have you ever felt that somebody is misjudging you or your situation?
When other people form an opinion of you -that you feel is deeply inaccurate -it's because they're missing a lot of contexts that only you know about yourself; that's exactly how others feel too.
Did it ever happen to you to imagine yourself having a certain experience, feeling in a certain way -just to later realize upon having that very experience -that things were not as you expected them to be, and you didn't feel as you expected to feel?
Here is the thing, we are not very good at understanding others we can barely understand ourselves; and when I say barely, I mean hardly.
Considering this -when it comes to treating others -there is only one attitude that makes sense;
We need to accept that we don't really know how is to be someone else.
And we have to assume there is more than meets the eye and there are a lot of things that we are completely missing.
I think we should see other people just like an iceberg; we see just the tip but underneath the surface, there is a lot more that we don't know about.
Being judgmental and mean towards others based on our own projections is undeniable proof of lack of intelligence; while compassion and understanding is the highest form of intelligence.
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