A colleague of mine, Mary Linnell, shared the story below. It strongly resonated with me in terms of one of my values which is ‘acceptance’. I believe that you accept the place that people are at; you don’t judge them as you don’t necessarily know their story. We all travel a thin line in life and at any point in time our circumstances can suddenly change, and we can find ourselves on the other side of that line in a totally different, unexpected situation because of something outside of our control.
Does this resonate with you?
A young couple moved into a new house. The next morning while they were eating breakfast, the young woman looked through the window and saw her neighbour hanging the washing outside.
“That laundry is not very clean; she doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better soap powder.” Her husband looked on, remaining silent.
Every time the young woman looked out and saw that the neighbour had hung her washing out to dry, she made the same comments. A month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband, “Look, she’s finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?”
The husband replied, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”
And so it is with life… What we see when watching others depends on the clarity of the window through which we look.
So don’t be too quick to judge others.
“Judging a person does not define who they are. It defines who you are.”
– Paulo Coelho