We are quick to point fingers, to sit as judge and jury, and to serve as experts on the behavior and lives of others. But we never truly understand their reality, their circumstances, the environment of their lives.
We would be disgusted with those who showed no emotion when someone they knew died, or stole the clothes and shoes of their dead companion. Judgement at is easiest. Unless the man who died is a fellow prisoner at Auschwitz, and survival is more important than compassion. I am in the midst of reading ” Mans’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl, who survived the concentration camp and the brutality of the Nazis. When basic human survival instincts take over, everything else goes out the window. More on Mr. Frankl’s book later.
For now, we must learn to practice empathy and kindness, with a sprinkler of compassion, when it comes to how we see others. If we live in our own reality, isn’t it only fair, that we allowed others to live in theirs?
About Hemant Rustogi