Imagine you met this little law-breaking, ne’er-do-well kid.
He’s a thief who stole food from your store.
At that moment, you’ve got a choice. You can either punish him or try to understand his reasoning.
.
Imagine you decided to be generous and understanding.
And you discover his mom is very sick.
Like, super-sick. The kind of sick where she can’t work or provide food for her children.
So you offer him your food.
It’s not much, but it’s what you have.
Now fast-forward.
It’s 30 years later, and you’re just living your life — still being that Mr. Rogers-type person…
And something happens … you get sick.
It’s devastating to your whole family. HUGE medical bills.
But that one small moment of generosity from years ago changed a life. And now it’s changed YOUR life.
All expenses paid … 30 years ago.
We are all bumbling around this planet, and each of us comes from a different situation in life. There’s never really a way to know what someone else’s circumstances are or what drives any of us to make the choices we make. What we do know is that sometimes we will be wronged in big or small ways. When this happens, maybe we can take a moment to think about the motivations of other people and try to mentally meet them where they are. If we apply this story, maybe, just maybe, we can begin to understand each other and make life a little bit easier.
