I think one of the relatively hard lessons that I had to learn a little late in life is that it's not always about you(me). People go through stuff, sometimes, because they're unable to manage it properly, it spills into their interactive skills.
And if you're like me who often overthinks, you'll probably start thinking that it was something you did or something you're not cognizant of, about you, that caused a change in their mood. Sometimes, you might overcompensate without understanding that what this person is going through has nothing to do with you.
There are countless other instances like this where we often internalize other people's behaviour wrongly and sometimes assume it has something to do with us, like what happened yesterday on my way out.
I was in the backseat of a vehicle with this woman seated on the right. I was just busy on my phone waiting for the vehicle to get filled up. Moments later, passengers came along, just as they tried to enter, this woman who had been sitting beside me, got down and asked the two other passengers to get in. Make and female. The driver, who was obviously in a haste, just casually made a remark about how all of that was not necessary and the lady got provoked and started talking about how there's nothing wrong if she decides not to sit closely with a man.
She said the guy can sit close to a man while she sat beside a fellow woman. It was no joke and I just sat there looking.
If it were one of those days when I rush out of the house for an errand without taking shower, I might probably have assumed that I was smelling or something. But this was different. While she was going back and forth with both the passenger and the driver, I was just mute, thinking about what made her uncomfortable sitting beside me - that she finally had to sit close to another man before our vehicle moved. Yes, that right. Before we moved, there was me, a lady, her and then a man on the other end.
I was just going over this in my head, spinning every possible angle till I just heard my own voice in my head say - it's not always about you. It took a while for that to settle in because some of the people in the vehicle had to look at me weirdly like they were trying to figure out what was wrong, including the lady that sat close to me. I just had to take it as one of those things I could never truly understand
Don't even know why I'm sharing this here. I sincerely do not.
Just felt like it.
Thanks for stopping by.
SOKA馃枻