It’s easy to forget that everyone has their own story. We all go through tough times, and sometimes it can be hard to see beyond our own hardships. It’s important to remember that you never know what someone is going through, so it’s always important to be kind.
A little act of kindness can go a long way, and you never know when you might need a little bit of kindness yourself. So next time you see someone struggling, take a moment to reach out and help if you can.
You’ll be making their day just a little bit brighter, and who knows they might just return the favor someday. Here are a few reasons why no matter how much you try, you can never know what someone is truly going through:
Reasons not to make assumptions about people or their lives:
1- Looking happy doesn’t mean a person is actually happy:
It’s always important to remember that you have no real way of knowing if someone is actually happy or just pretending to be it. Even if they seem happy on the outside, they could be struggling with something internally. It’s easy to make assumptions about people, but it’s important to stay open-minded and understanding.
Everyone has their own story and their own battles to fight. Just because someone seems put-together doesn’t mean that they don’t have anything going on under the surface.
It’s important to keep in mind that even your closest loved ones might not want to worry you with stuff they overthink or worries they have. You might be the only one who shows a person that looks happy on the outside compassion and understanding. Everyone else that met them that day, could’ve already assumed that they were doing great when they actually weren’t doing well at all.
That’s why you should know that looking happy could just be a way of being open and friendly, it might not be an actual indication of a person’s level of happiness.
2- Nobody knows what truly goes in a person’s mind:
It’s funny to think that we know what somebody else is thinking, by looking at them or being in their presence. The people that you meet for a coffee, a party even, or a day on the beach could be overthinking or worrying about things that we have no clue about.
We might think that person’s life is all relaxation and fun but the truth is that they could be using whatever little break they could to treat themselves by going out with us. It could be the only breather they got in weeks or months, and we might think that it’s what their life looks like on a daily basis.
So it’s one thing to try and read somebody’s body language in order to get an idea of what they’re thinking, but it’s another thing entirely to actually know for sure. If you see any worrying signs and can’t help but wonder what a person you’re hanging out with is really thinking, then ask if they’re okay or need to talk.
Sometimes, it’s best not to overthink someone else’s state of mind either and just take everything at face value and believe the front they’re displaying. That’s because if someone is not already sharing their worries with you, they might not want to and that’s fine.
3- You don’t know all the problems a person is facing on a daily basis:
Unless you spend every living minute of someone’s life with them, you never truly know about all the problems they have. Even your spouse or kids might have little issues or things that got them in trouble recently, that they don’t want to share with you. Even if you’re very close with your partner they might have issues with their parents or at their workplace that they’d rather not go into detail about, with you.
So never assume that just because someone shares a roof with you that you probably know about every little worry and issue they have. In the end, you too probably had a day where you put on a brave face and acted like everything is okay when really you were crumbling inside. It’s hard to be vulnerable and show our true colors, especially when we’re afraid of being judged or rejected.
In the end, we all have our own problems, but also insecurities, doubts, and struggles that we might not want to share with others. So just because somebody seems problem-free, confident, and put together on the outside doesn’t mean they don’t have their own demons to battle.
So again next time you find yourself judging someone, remember that you don’t know what they’re going through. Be kind, because you never know what somebody else is struggling with internally.
4- You never know someone’s entire history:
Even if it’s your own sibling or child, in the end, you will never know someone’s full story and history. So even when you meet someone and get close enough to them to know them very well, you’re still not gonna know about their past or any negative experiences and traumas they might have had.
For this reason, you could be sitting with someone, and seemingly nothing bad would’ve happened but they could’ve gone internally through a roller-coaster of feelings and intense thoughts. The person you’re with could’ve just gone on their phone and seen something on their social media feed that triggered them or awakened fear and pains you didn’t even know they had.
In a split second, a person’s entire mood could go from one extreme to the other and they could not even tell you. So even if you knew everything about a specific person and their present, by not knowing their past, you still wouldn’t understand what they could be going through and what could trigger or provoke them.