Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle

Often, I find myself critiquing the actions and motives of the people God put in my life. "Sal thinks he has it so tough. The kid is a joke, his parents still pay for everything. He has no idea what life is like, I have been on my own financially since I was sixteen." Then of course there are people who in turn see my life as a cake-walk as they cuddle up under cars to grab a night's sleep. The fact of the matter is, life is about perspective and vantage. World War II, for example, left countless people homeless and fatherless, widowed and desolate, but it also made some people's fortunes and left the nations that were unscathed poised for prosperity. Different peoples inherited different situations following this catostrophic event in history. Many would ponder this and interpret that life bestowed kindness on some, and cruelty on others. Misunderstanding life in this way is a common error that we all make. Life is life. The doses may be different, but we all endure pain and hardship, happiness and triumph, dissapointment and calamity. A rich kid growing up with everything he could want being immediately handed to him is ensnared by life just as much as a poor kid who has to work to support his family and cannot go to college. Homeless people have issues, so does Donald Trump.

We need to understand this. John 13:34-35 says "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." It is difficult to love people we do not understand. In order to understand people, we must be cognizant and acceptant of the fact that "everyone you meet is fighting a battle." -Plato. (Another version of Plato's quote went "Be kind for everyone is enduring their own personal hell) People are going to have hardships, whether their life situation appears to be severe or not. I once dated a girl that would get extremely stressed and depressed whenever she did not excell on a test. Her approach to perfection made it difficult for me to respect her. It seemed absurd to me that she made school into such a big deal, especially since one of my friends had just died in a car accident. I learned that if something is truly a big deal to a person, then you should respect it for what it is. Maybe failing a test was the worse thing to happen to this girl, but regardless, that represented her pinnacle of fear and anxiety. The degree of a person's emotional state is more important to focus on than the events that transported them there. We must respect and sympathize with people according to where they see themselves.