There was a little market down the block from my house that had struggled for years. It was such an eyesore, attracted unsavory characters, the whole neighborhood was waiting, hoping, it would shut down. That something fun and chic would open in its place and increase all of our property values. I walked by the market, looked-in and saw the owner arranging his empty shelves, trying his best to make the store look fuller, nicer, stocked. That’s when I realized — If I got my wish and the store closed down, the owner would lose his livelihood, the income he uses to support himself and his family.

I was worse than being someone who doesn’t care about the struggles of the shop owner,  I was someone who didn’t even notice them. How could I? All I saw was my perspective, I was blind to  anything outside of it. The truth is that everything in this world has two sides. We however are used to only seeing one side –our own, the one we believe, the one which benefits us. This is not to say every situation is an us versus them, an I’m happy and you’re sad. But in this period of my practice I did start seeing that my perspective, my beliefs, they weren’t universal, they weren’t the end-all-be-all. There are other angles, other perspectives.
Over time this understanding has become second nature. I find myself constantly looking at situations from other people’s perspectives;  almost as quickly as I begin to formulate my own case in an argument, I start balancing that, hedging it, trying to see the other side. This has been one of the insights that has softened me the most, begun to chip away at the greatness of ME. Ironically, I am someone that put such a premium on being ‘compassionate’… what hope did I have of getting there when all I could see was myself?