BEST FIND OUT WHAT HE OR SHE IS LOOKING AT

 

 

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I'm sharing with you one of my most treasured quotes.  It's from a book by Hugh Prather....... 'NOTES TO MYSELF'.  It says.....
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"No one is wrong.  At most someone is uninformed.  If I think an individual is wrong, either I am unaware of something,  or the person is.  Unless I want to play a superiority game I had best find out what he or she is looking at."
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Unquote.
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Allow me some thoughts.......
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Long ago in my blossoming self-righteous youth I would brush this aside as silly because I had this thought in my young silly head that people can be wrong and there can be no explanation to that except that... they are wrong.  But when I was wrong I always pointed to my youth as a ready excuse. Foolish, of course. Ah but the shortsighted folly of youth!
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As we grow older life proves us wrong on many things we thought we already knew. One lesson drilled into my mind by mother was this.....  'Always get to the story. Behind every individual is a story... his story.'  So whenever I hear someone say something, right or wrong, I would imagine mother shaking her finger at me.... 'Wait for the story.' 
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Yes, she was right ....because life did show me that there is always a story behind every right and every wrong. Opinions, insights, decisions, perceptions and the like are all shaped by experiences contained in a person's personal history.  So when a person presents an opinion but which you think is wrong,  hold judgement.  Find out why or how. That person's history influences his or her thoughts, words, and deeds.... the same way it does yours.  It's possible, too, maybe that person knows something you don't know... or maybe he knows nothing of what you already know.  But definitely he is speaking right off his own life journey and experiences.  You would, too, in your own.
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Besides nobody has the monopoly of knowledge or wisdom or information. Further we both may not be seeing the same thing in the same way........... you may be seeing trees but I am looking at its fruits. Like a friend had this crush on a good-looking fella, but I found his manner quite abrasive. But when later I found out why, then I finally understood.
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Seek to be informed. Wait to be informed. With information comes better understanding, compassion, empathy, wisdom.
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As Prather said.....  '..best find out what he or she is looking at.'