People are a lot like freight trains.
The other night I had to hurry while driving home from a friend's house in order to make curfew. I was making incredible time…until I reached train tracks. A freight train slowly entered the scene, and I was forced to stop my car in front of the blinking red lights and turn my engine off. I waited. And waited. And didn't stop waiting for what felt like hours. I looked at the train in disgust; to me it was no more than a nuisance.
As I was staring at the train though, I started to think. In some ways freight trains are much like the people in all our lives. We tend to look at people in context, much like we view the train as an annoyance, but we never think about what people have had to overcome to get to the point that they're at. Similarly, a freight train could have traveled across the entire country to get to the station that they're currently occupying. The fact is that we are looking at the train in the moment, much like we judge our peers in the moment.
When someone comes across as bothersome, sometimes it's necessary to consider where they've been and what they've gone through to understand why they're acting the way they are. It's a really good habit to get yourself into, because even if someone does aggravate you, you'll find that they're often on the right track.
I completely agree with you. Sometimes, you don't think to consider what others have been through to get to where you are and you may just jump to conclusions and hurt their feelings. People often forget that others have bad days too and by the time they reach you, their feelings are sensitive as ever and you must be careful. This is like the topic that was brought up at our school workshop. The man who spoke told us to look out for one another and be more considerate and inclusive. If we never think to consider other people's feelings before acting, we could end up with a whole mess of people with hurt feelings.
ReplyDelete