I believe that everyone, everywhere is just doing their best. With what they have. Within their current capabilities.
This is a hard pill to swallow sometimes. Saying that Elon Musk is doing his best is an easy sell. But to say that Trump, your idiot neighbour, the resident anti-vax num and your mortal enemy are all doing their best is a tough sell. This certainly isn’t something I have always believed, and something I continue to resist.
Some people are lovely, kind, generous people, and others are bitter, frustrated, arrogant dicks.
This is true. To an extent. But this is surface level. We very rarely stop and think about why people act certain ways. We should look a little deeper and potentially with slightly more empathy and understanding that some have had it much worse than others.
So much of who we are and what we are is predetermined. We come out of the womb and much of our future is established. Our genetics, our environment, the time we are born, the family that raises us, the country we live in, the current economic state etc etc etc.
The more time I spend reading books such as Outliers, Sapiens and The Selfish Gene all make a pretty good case for a fixed bandwidth of adaptation that we are given to work within.
I’m not saying that we have no control over our lives. Much to the contrary. What I’m saying that even if free will does exist, much of our being is pretty much decided for us.
If we have even 1% say in how things turn out, then it shouldn’t matter in the slightest.
The way we view the world is just fragments of stories we tell ourselves. Poorly stitched together to create our world view or perception of how the world works
Something I’ve been trying to do lately is look at everyone I encounter as not just the person they are now. But all of the previous versions of themselves they have transcended to become who they are now.
We were all children once. Bright eyed with our whole lives ahead of us. Unfortunately some/most of us forget that. (If this is you, read the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Life is pretty tough. Some have it far worse than others. Some have a larger capacity to wade through the shit. It’s unfortunate but that’s the way it is. I think we as a society need to find ways to understand this on deeper levels. To empathise with those who aren’t showing the best of themselves, because they don’t know how. Everyone is just doing their best.
All it will take, is all you’ve got.
And of course.
Be kind.
Because kindness is magic.
Lachie
