For me it was the very trite seeming “people are rarely against you, they’re usually just for themselves”
In the moment it just felt like something people say and I didn’t give it much thought. Later I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and it has completely changed the way I perceive people’s interactions with me. I now have far more grace for people’s behavior and tend to interpret people’s actions with far more good faith.
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I had a restaurant manager who sucked in many ways, but she did give me this one piece of wisdom.
“Treat everyone as if they’re having the worst day of their lives”
was a messed up kid in my teens
was made by high school to visit a psychologist
laid it all out to him, problems I had with my (dysfunctional) family and all the drama stuff that went on in my household
at the end of the 2nd session, when I was about to leave
he leaned in to me and whispered
*”listen kid, the problem is not YOU, the problem is THEM”*
did me a world of good…
A less generous version of that goes something like: “Never attribute to malice what can more easily be attributed to incompetence.”