I see something you don’t see …

One item that’s regularly on my shopping list is whole-grain bread. I try to always keep a package on hand, because some of these breads have a long shelf life, so I know I won’t run out. When it was time for our next grocery run, I asked my husband to check the expiration date on the bread in our pantry for me. He came back with the news that it had recently expired. Darn!

A little while later, I was in the pantry myself, picked up the bread, and lo and behold: It hadn’t expired at all—it still had plenty of shelf life left! Wonderful, I thought. When I told my husband about it, he was somewhat surprised, but he accepted my assessment that he must have “misread” it.

A short time passed again, and once more I needed something from the pantry for cooking. But what did I see there? There were two loaves of bread on the shelf! One of them still had plenty of shelf life left, and the other had already expired. I couldn’t help but laugh!

This incident is a metaphor for how easily we accept things in our lives as facts because we’ve seen or experienced them in a certain way, while denying others the right to their own perception. Just as I immediately thought, my husband was ‘mistaken’ because my eyes fell on the loaf of bread that was still good for a long time, thereby denying him the “right” to “his truth”—that’s how it often happens in life. I see things as I experience them, as I perceive them. But the other person does the same! In the case of the bread, each of us was right. Each of us described what we had seen with our own eyes. Now, this example of whole-grain bread is, of course, pretty trivial, but how often do I dismiss the other person’s way of life, their opinion, or their perception, just because it doesn’t match my own! Yet I often know nothing at all about the other person’s life—nothing about what has shaped them or what hardships they’ve had to endure. I often don’t even know their personality—what makes them who they are. What is essential to one person in life can make another sick, simply because he or she is wired completely differently.

If we take this idea even further, that is precisely the reason for many conflicts in our world. But since change always begins with me first, here’s a reminder to myself: next time, don’t immediately dismiss the other person’s perspective, but let it stand. For, as Jesus so beautifully put it:

Treat others as you would like to be treated by them.
Luke 6:31 (GNTD)