Relativity

A teenager doesn’t make the football team. He starts swearing about how wrong and stupid the coaches are.
A teenager doesn’t have anyone to sit with at lunch. He remembers how his father always told him he was “unlovable”.

A couple sits with a large group, in a restaurant, to celebrate a friend’s birthday. They think, “I can’t believe we have to chip in for his dinner again!”
A couple sits in that restaurant, watching those couples, who they thought were close friends, celebrating. They recognize that they’re really only part of the group when other people need something.

An employee, at a new job for 8 months, has to cover for a co-worker. She doesn’t think that’s fair.
An employee, at the same company for 28 years, is suddenly laid off. She doesn’t know how she’ll feed her family.

A pregnant, 22-year-old sobs on the floor after being physically abused, again, by her “boyfriend”.
A 22-year-old in the same building sobs because her “boyfriend” of ten days decided he doesn’t want to date her.

A child who submitted a list of “20 must-have gifts” is angry because his parents couldn’t find the exact gaming controller he “needed”.
A child who was promised one Christmas present, if he worked all year for his parents, is devastated to receive nothing on Christmas morning.

A woman loses an expensive bracelet. She’s devastated and “doesn’t know how she’ll go on” without that piece of jewelry.
A woman loses her young son, to death. She’s devastated and doesn’t know how she’ll go on…at all.

The problem with relativity is that it’s, well, so relative. The perspectives you have grew out of your experiences up to this point in your life (absolutely amazing, horrific or, for most of us, somewhere in between).

We often only see through the lenses of our realities.

A person who never had the opportunity to leave the town where he or she was born will, likely, experience a trip to another part of the country differently than those who travel extensively. And, someone who never had a home life that was anything but brutal and lonely, will often walk through life differently than those of us who were blessed with childhoods filled with love.

Our lives are framed by our days up to now. That certainly doesn’t mean that we can’t choose to see differently. But, it does call us to be aware that our experiences are often not at all what others have lived through—to be aware that it’s all relative.

So this week, how about if we:
• listen more
• practice sensitivity
• be empathetic—be empathy
• truly see others—not just the way they look, but as humans who may have experienced things in this life that we’ll never understand
• let go of our egos and be in touch with our spirits
• be in this moment—aware of the fragility of life, and
• remember, always, that everyone’s walk is different

If we work together, maybe we can change realities; maybe we can bandage woundedness; maybe we can change our world.

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