Over the past few weeks, working and living in a new environment, I was reminded of one of the hardest things I have to reconcile with: the fact that there are people in my life who believe I am an asshole. That my actions are meant to hurt them, that I never care and that my intentions are horrible.
It would be very easy to dismiss the above as “they don’t know me”. It would be quite comfortable for me to label this as their choice and just sign it off to something that I have no control over, or, worse, something I should not give a hoot about.
As I have been sitting with the discomfort of knowing that there are people in the world who think that about me and my actions, a new understanding of the saying “people don’t see us how we are, they see us how they are” knocked on my mind’s door. I reluctantly welcomed it in and, the more I entertained it, the more I realized the truth of it.
I think that the saying is very true and at the same time that it does not represent an out for our actions when they have opposite effects to those we intended. I believe that I misinterpreted the saying above in a way that does not do me any honor. Self absorbed, I chose to understand this phrase to mean that when people think we are ill intended, it is in fact they who are the rotten ones in the equation. They are mean, therefore they see us as mean. While I can understand this very simplistic and scapegoaty way of interpreting the saying as human, I think I am able and should know better.
Dealing with some difficult moments in the game of connecting with other people, I have come to a different understanding of the saying. I do believe that people see us as they are but “the way they are” encapsulates their experience, their joy, their pain, the things they were offered and those that they were denied, the justice and oppression in their lives and so much more than we can ever intuit. When we say that people see us as they are, what we are actually saying is that they see us through the lens of what happened to them, what hurt them and what uplifted them. They see us as the characters that we most resemble in their life story in that particular moment: the helper or the villain.
And yes, there is a certain lack of control we have in the character we get to portray in other peoples stories. Because we don’t know what we don’t know. There is however a tool that we always have at our disposal, that we can use to at least get a better chance at understanding: we can choose to put our own lenses aside, dismiss for a moment the characters and events that shaped us and be present, actively listening and engaging with the person in front of us. We can choose to become curious: what happened to you that this is how you see me and my actions ? What is it in me that triggers that side of you?
Becoming curious is hard because most of the times, especially in times of conflict and when we feel unfairly treated, our filters get blurry and our inner voices go up many notches. Setting those aside leaves us vulnerable to a conversation partner that might choose not to do the same. And might choose to deal a punch. And yet, in the moment of truth we all have, when our tired heads hit the pillow, it is only genuine curiosity about the others in such interactions that will lull us to sweet sleep.
As I wrap this up, I am curious: what happened to me that today labels some people I know as assholes? What is it in me that triggers anxiety and even repulsion at the briefest interaction with them? Great food for thought.
Connect 