Sometimes more than the work of living out the life you have been handed is the living through the mud of others opinions. You put out your best effort and can almost always count on someone to tell you that you “could have” or worse, “should have”, done better.
I have a friend, TJ,that has been teaching me something about seeing people who appear to be, in some way, failing at life. TJ often says of people “They are just doing the best they can”. She gives most everyone the benefit of her believing that they are truly getting through life the best way they can. The angry customer, the sour clerk at the register, the arrogant manager at the office, the rude and difficult client, the mom that is not doing that well at parenting, the dad that seems indifferent to his family, the juvenile delinquent, the criminal on his way to jail. Everyone.
I see TJ as a powerful and successful person. And yet when she says “they are just doing the best they can” it is spoken in such an earnest empathy. It seems to come from a place in her that makes you feel it. You just know she is looking hard at life and considering her own faults, failures, inconsistencies, all of her life choices. You can almost feel the pain. It seems she is saying to herself in the deepest way. “I know I am doing the best I can.” It’s as though she senses the pain in others when their eyes can’t make contact with hers or in body movements that display a weariness that life has not been easy. I have never known anyone who so clearly does not judge outward appearance.
I have an employee that smiles…all the time. He is a faithful employee…there everyday…on time…with a good attitude…good performer but never the top. I would have pegged him as better than average…but not really living up to his potential. He’s one of those people that seem to move about under the radar. I never thought much about him until one day a coworker told me his story. It turns out that just a few years ago his son was playing video games at home with a friend. While they were playing video games a man fired a gun, two apartments over, and the bullet traveled through several apartment walls and directly into the head of his son. The man who fired the gun is in prison today and my smiling under the radar employee communicates regularly with him. His heart is full of forgiveness and empathy for the man who is responsible for the death of his teenage son.
We have all known people that have given up on life for far less troubles. And to drive the point home for me, I was at lunch with this man one day and we were talking about how hard life is for some people. He used a phrase that we have all heard many times. He said “I don’t have to look far to see someone who is worse off than me.” The weight of those words…coming from a man that had so unbelievably lost his son…a man that has a right to say that life isn’t fair…is still counting his blessings. Average? Hardly…I now describe him as exceptional…rare…maybe even heroic.
But like me, you would not get that from a casual glance of this man. He is a living reminder to me that I have no way of knowing the story behind the people I see everyday and of whom I am in a habit of passing judgment.
Maybe we should all, like TJ, take a more forgiving approach to the people in our world and give them the benefit of the doubt. Imagine the compassion you would feel and the kindness you would share on a daily basis if you looked at most people and said in your heart…
“They are doing the best they can.”
Sometimes people truly are doing the best they can with what they know or what they have but it comes up short in the eyes of those around them. The results in their life are often graded by unrealistic standards and the effort they have put forth to just be where they are today goes completely unnoticed.
Let’s decide to stop contributing to the “mud” of negative opinions that cause the struggle of others to be even more difficult. Instead, maybe we could start believing that those around us are doing “the best they can”. Maybe then we would look more closely at the person, where they have come from, what their life struggles have been, the long road they have traveled to be where they are today, and then, compared to that…what do their efforts look like? Probably a lot like yours and mine.
"Iron sharpens iron"
Thanks TJ
“Love your brother as yourself”
Jesus
