I just completed a comment on a friend’s blog with this sentence:
“I’m all-the-more proud of her because of what she has had to overcome to become who she is.”
I was referring to My Beloved but as I pushed the send button I realized that is true about many of the people I know. I factor in how much they’ve had to overcome to become the people they are today.
Some people start the race of life with the huge weights of as poverty, illiteracy, physical disabilities or deformities, mental or other illness, emotional roablocks, abuse, addictions, depression, terrible modeling by their parents, or no parents from early after their birth, and more.
I try to remind myself of their backstory. Sometimes someone might appear not to have come far in their lives until I’ve learned what they had to overcome to get there.
The world is full of backstories. We all have them. I wonder how much better I would treat everyone if only I knew the burdens they carried. When I am wise enough to think of such things, my words, thoughts, and actions grow kinder, and I become more patient, compassionate, understanding and forgiving.
In other words, I become closer to the person I’m focused on becoming.
Russ
