Don't Judge Personally

Be curious, not judgmental. I realize that when I’m in a really bad place, when life seems overwhelming to handle, I don’t want to socialize with people, I don’t even want to get out of bed in the morning. Not being in a friendly mood has nothing to do with the other person, it's just a matter of bad timing, it’s just a matter of not being in a good place at the moment. When I started experiencing this for myself, I realized that I have been too harsh in my judgments of others. I work at a grocery store and a daily experience for me is someone getting mad, being rude, and dare I say it, behaving irrationally. While there is never an excuse for incivility, I want to point out that these people who I never had met in my life were not taking it out on me personally, even though it sometimes felt that way. These people were just in a bad place and I got caught up in the displacement of their problems. I have come to realize that you have to meet people where they’re at because truth be told, while it's easy to judge, you must never forget that you’ve hit rock bottom before and you’ve also done things that have hurt people that you wish you could take back. The true character of a man or woman is not where he or she stands in specific moments that do not represent their entire life. Rather the true measure of a person is who he or she chooses to be when life seems to be warring against you. 

     You are not good because it is easy or because you are good all the time, you are good because your commitment to find goodness persists regardless of the challenges it is to be human.