Walk two moons
“Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins.” Love’s a lot easier when you take the time to consider why someone else does the things they do. Especially things that for whatever reason just piss you off. It’s tricky. It requires you to fuck off everything you know and to imagine what life is like through their eyes. All their memories of their entire life leading up to that particular moment, affecting the way they think and feel and process and speak and move. You will always fuck this up no matter what, but that’s okay because it’s still fun to imagine those things.
Getting back to how doing this can help you love someone, it’s basically stupid as fuck to think that you know a god damn thing about anyone. Ever. Unless they show you and you’re open to what they have to say. Even then you’re only seeing a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of who they are. It’s also only what they’re choosing to show you in that particular moment. It also has to work it’s way past your own ego which carries along with it assumptions and condescension when it gets out of check.
In any case, everything else that influences how you treat them comes from what you choose to interpret and/or what you choose to believe. The choice part. Pretty important. And when you love someone, You have only a couple of options. You can project a bunch of bullshit onto them that is completely absent of any context or actual truth. Zero truth. None in moments like that. Or you can choose to try something different.
You can choose to accept that you have no fucking clue why they do the things they do sometimes. At the same time you can show them (at every opportunity you have because why the fuck not) that you respect them unconditionally and would never belittle how they choose to get through life on their own terms. When you really god damn mean it, you can tell them that you love them. You just love the shit out of them and you’re grateful as balls that they came into your life and affected you deeply.
All that thought on one person. When you get to mind-blowing is when you try to practice this kind of acceptance with each and every person you encounter in your life. Ever. You refuse to make a definitive judgement about them without them giving you insight first. You’ll fail hard at times. It’s never perfect. It’s a process. It’s fun as shit. You’ll look and feel like an asshole sometimes when you’re not. It’s challenging. It requires focus and it makes you strong as fuck.
When you make the choice to assume that everyone else is on some level as fucked up and hurt as you are about some things that have happened in their lives, and that it’s okay to feel like that sometimes, it just gets a little easier. When you experience the sort of calm that comes with keeping your side of the street clean, you don’t feel obligated to show up and shower everyone you love in your life with appreciation and respect. You just want to because it feels fucking good to. And you’re not what some routinely confuse with emo: disingenuous. You’re just happy as shit for the most part.
-Adim Premani
