Have you ever had the experience of someone from a younger generation not knowing what something is? 

I was cleaning out a room in my aunt’s house with my cousin’s eight year old daughter when we found a floppy disk in the back corner of a closet. My cousin’s daughter called it a toy because to her it was a replica of the save icon on her computer. 

Now we might laugh at this because we have the experience of it being a floppy disk and know the save icon was modeled after the floppy disk, but imagine if she were in the room alone and saw that object. She would say, “That’s a toy” based on the fact that to her, it was a 3D object of something she’s seen in 2D.

If you were alone in the room with it, you’d say, “That’s a floppy disk.” 

So the question then is: what is the object? Is it a floppy disk or is it a toy?

Before you answer let me throw in one more variable: what about civilizations who have never even seen a computer before? What might they think it is, other than a toy or a disk? 

So again I’ll ask you: is it a toy, a disk, or something else?

The answer is: it’s none of the above. The point is that the object itself isn’t anything. You place meaning on top of it when you look at it, interact with it, and label it. Your past experiences with the object dictate your understanding of it today. 

All objects, situations, circumstances, things that happen to you, things that people say to you, and so on are all neutral. You assign meaning to them based on your own experience. Information is neutral, but your response is not. The way you process that information is not. 

Everything you’ve gone through in your past—the beliefs of adults you grew up around, cultural conditioning, inherent biases, the kids who made fun of you on the playground, the boss who said you’re not good enough, your crush who rejected you, your mindset and emotions, —all of these things help to build your belief system that serves as the lens through which you view life. 

Ten different people could witness the same situation and see it from ten different points of view, all adamantly insisting that their way is the right way.

Our lens tells us that the world is either a scary place or a loving place, that people are to be trusted or we should always be on the defense, that we have lots of opportunities or we are gridlocked into place.

Now let’s apply this principle to people. 

No one can hurt you in any kind of way unless you decide they can. Any action that someone has taken against you is neutral until your mind gives meaning to it and places the label of “good” or “bad” on top of it. 

Good and bad are completely subjective. What you might view as harmful, someone else who shared that experience with you might have seen as helpful.  You can decide that it doesn’t matter. You can decide that good came out of it. You can decide that it was a misunderstanding, or that the other person had good intentions, or that not everything that person brought into your life was negative. 

You can change your perspective around it. 

Be mindful of the stories you tell yourself. Don’t talk yourself into a story that isn’t true because then it’ll harden into a belief and affect your thoughts and forever change the lens through which you view the world. The truth is that oftentimes people don’t do things just to create chaos and havoc in your life or intentionally hurt you. 

Just like you have a lens and a story through which you view the world and that drives you to make the choices you make, so does everyone else.  If you really knew the big picture, you’d probably only have compassion for them. But because you only see a tiny bit of what’s going on, you make all of these assumptions around this person and why they did the things they did. 

One of my favorite books is The Four Agreements. And two of the four agreements are don’t make assumptions and don’t take anything personally. 

That’s such a big reason for why we allow people to hurt us, or we perceive that they hurt us, because we take things personally that we shouldn’t take personally. 

Don’t take anything personally. 

No one’s doing things because of you. They’re doing things because of themselves. Everyone’s so wrapped up in their own mind, in their own head. They’re not worried about what you’re doing, while all you’re thinking about is how they affect you.

One of my favorite poems is by Lain Thomas - it’s called On The Day You Read This. And there’s this line in there I love that goes: No one judges you when you walk into a room and all they really want to know, is if you're judging them.

Imagine you’re sitting in your house when all of the sudden you hear meowing coming from outside. You walk out and find in a corner of your yard a scrawny black and white cat.  You think I love kitties! I’m gonna go pet the kitty. You take a step closer and it arches its back and hisses at you viciously and swats at you.That’s not a nice kitty. 

Now what are some adjectives that you might use to describe this cat? Mean, aggressive, evil, rude, kind of an asshole. Maybe you’re even frightened of the cat. Then let’s say you stay long enough and you look at that cat and you really see that cat. And if you do that you might notice its leg is bleeding. And your mind starts to go okay this cat’s in pain.

If you keep staying you might hear this. And if you peak over that cat (act it out) you might see 4 tiny baby kittens with their eyes still closed.  Suddenly your perspective shifts to one of compassion, concern, empathy, and understanding. You can do the same with the people in your life. Try to see things from their perspective. 

Just like the cat, people who lash out at you in anger, threats, or lies are coming from a place of their own pain and their own fear. 

By extending understanding and the ability to see things from their perspective, not only will you possibly make a friend, but you are teaching that person by your actions. 

So now they can go out in the world and do the same for someone else. 

While it may seem the easy route to try to get revenge against someone and lash out in anger and resentment, love and understanding can go a lot further. 

Both will send ripples out into the world. It’s up to you if you send out ripples of hate or ripples of love.