A mile in their shoes

While growing up occasionally I would get mad at someone’s actions and how they affected me – who doesn’t?  My mom would always say the same thing to me, “You don’t know until you walked a mile in their shoes.”  or “Put yourself in their place.”

It caused a habit in my life, I always put myself in other peoples shoes – understand what motivates them, what causes them to do what it is they do.  In most of the situations, it’s obvious and understandable to me.  Jealousy.  Fear.  Pride.  Some would say the seven sins do motivate the majority of our actions – especially actions that in some way harm others.  Perhaps that is why we are to avoid those sins?

But sometimes I run across an action that is unfathomable to me.  Rape.  Murder.  Those are admittedly on the end of the awful scale.  A part of my brain can understand the circumstances a person probably goes through to make such actions not only acceptable but craved…  All the same, I can hardly put myself in their shoes.  I still cannot imagine those actions ever being acceptable.

Other times, smaller circumstances – I cannot fathom selfishness and hurting someone else for your own selfish reasons.  Little things – like cutting in front of someone in a line.  Are you really in that much of a hurry?  Purposefully saying something cruel.  Did it really make you feel THAT much better about yourself?

I suspect I’ve recently been the victim of a selfish act.  I am not positive, nor can I prove it by any means.  But I think someone sabotaged a potential job for me.  One minute I had an interview and told someone I knew who worked at the company that I had it, the next minute the “scope of the job” had changed and they were “no longer interested” in bringing me in.  This is especially devastating as this is only the second “real” interview I’ve had in 4 months.  I thought this person would help me – not demolish me.

I find myself stunned at the possibility that in this economy, someone could do this to another person.  Someone they’ve known, someone they’ve laughed with.  Someone who’s never done a thing to hurt them.

If it happened, and I’m not positive it did, it is by far one of the most hurtful and selfish acts I can imagine.

What can someone do to you that is unfathomable in it’s purely selfish, not rationally motivated, nature?  Has something been done to you that is beyond your grasp to understand why?  Have you done something to someone else for no real good reason and if so, do you regret it?

~ by alie0bronwynn on April 16, 2009.