One of the lessons I have learned best this past year is to be less judgmental. I used to, more often than I'd like to admit, assume I knew enough about someone to scoff at them or talk disparagingly about them or their actions, just from a quick first impression. For example, I might see someone struggling to walk a clearly untrained dog and look down on them, judging them as a poor dog owner. Driving poorly around me was, and still is, a pretty good way to get me to judge you. Less problematically, I might see someone who looks healthy and assume they are, or I might assume someone is as rich or poor as they appear.
But it occurred to me one day as I was walking hand-in-hand with my wife that anyone could easily look at us and judge wrongly, and even be jealous of our lives. Nobody should be jealous of my life, after all. I have cancer, for crying out loud, and if anyone knew that, surely they'd pity me, not envy me. Clearly, assuming things about people based on just a first impression is dangerous and unhealthy. But I think there were really two lessons to learn there, because when I stop to think about it, there are actually plenty of potential reasons for others to be jealous of my life. For one, I am happy. A lot of people simply aren't, and while my life may not be perfect, and while I would willingly trade a great deal to be healthy and cancer-free for many, many years, I also have plenty for which I should be extremely grateful. Maybe it isn't so absurd after all, to think that someone might be jealous of my life. It's certainly food for thought, and a compelling reminder to appreciate the good in life, no matter how much bad there might be as well.
Returning to my main point here though. Thinking about what others might assume when looking at my wife and I highlighted, in my mind, the main problem with assuming you know anything about anyone just by looking at them. Looking at us, you would never know I spent the last year going through brutal cancer treatments. I look a bit too skinny, but I could easily pass for a long-distance runner, someone in great shape. At least, until anyone sees me try to run. For all appearances though, we look like a typical happy, healthy couple. And that really stuck with me. I don't know, from just looking at anyone, what their story may be, where they are in life, or why they're doing what they're doing.
Someone who looks healthy could be just like me, and have recently made it through a long period of hellish cancer treatment. They could even now have cancer that has yet to be discovered. Perhaps the reason they're on the phone while drifting out of their lane is that they're currently receiving terrible news over the phone as they drive. They could be poor as dirt, and wearing the one nice set of clothing they own as they head to an interview for a job they desperately need. Or conversely, they might be wealthy, and wearing grungy clothing because they're doing grungy, manual labor. They could be a professional dog trainer working with a troublesome dog for the very first time. Even the people in New York City that I cannot help but laugh at inside, who push their little dogs around in strollers, might have a reason for their apparent silliness. Maybe their dogs are old, and can only manage part of their normal walk now, so the stroller allows them to make it home without unduly stressing their arthritic joints. Who knows. The point is, without knowing someone's full story, without understanding the whole situation, it is impossible to say what is really going on, impossible to judge the people or the situation, even if it was my job to do so, which it really, really is not.
For me, it's a reminder to give people more grace, to not concern myself with all the things other people do that I might not agree with, or that I find annoying. They could have a good reason for their actions. They might not. It really doesn't matter. Unless I get to know someone and understand their circumstances, I cannot even begin to judge them fairly. And once I do know someone, once I understand everything they're going through, I really won't want to judge them at all.
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