In Someone Else's Shoes

Now let's take the principle of Conscious/Unconscious thought and apply it to our view of others.

Have you ever tried to explain the color of your walls to someone?  Even if the walls are white, everyone has their own viewpoint on what exactly white looks like.  The same is true to how we perceive our world.  When we say something is hard, it doesn't mean the same thing to someone else.  If we explain something exciting or scary to someone, they can never really get the true jist of what we're saying.  They simply aren't us.  Our circumstances and experiences have lead us to think a certain way, and no one else can truly mimic that.  This all goes back to Conscious and Unconscious though.  We Unconsciously see the world thorough our own eyes, our own definitions, and our own scales.  We may see someone griping and complaining about a difficult test in school, when it wasn't that bad for us. We tend to label people in these situations.  "Oh, they're just complaining.""They just want pity.""It's their fault for not studying" etc.  I think we need to look at these situations through their eyes and Consciously figure out the whys and hows.

I was on my mission and my missionary companion and I needed to visit a specific member of the church for something.  When we had knocked on the door, it was answered not by the women we were seeking, but her six year old daughter.  We had asked her if her mother was available, to which she looked into another room and answered by saying no, that we should cone back later.  For some reason, my companion had a hard time with this.
"She didn't even ask her Mom!  What a lazy little girl!"  he exclaimed.  I shook my head and gave him a potential explanation.
"What if her mother works from home and is on an important phone call, to which she specifically told her daughter to not bother her at all if she was on the phone?"

He hadn't thought of that.  And more often than not, when we make a hasty judgment on someone it's because we didn't think about what they were going through.  I reflect back on the several occasions that I was late for class, or work, or a meeting of some sort and it seemed that everything that could have gone wrong did.  No matter how many times I explain exactly what happened, I wasn't given mercy.  So whenever I see someone coming into class or work late, I think what all they could have gone through.

This method helps me be more patient and forgiving with others.  And honestly, I find it a lot easier to deal with people if they feel you understand, and even easy if I have no preemptive negative feelings about them.
Ultimately, we all should make a conscious effort to try and understand others.  It really is our choice to do so.