THE ART OF UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE…….

(Courtesy: A lesson learned in my 12th English text book; It keeps lingering)


One of the richest hours of my life was spent recently in the company of a woman who had just turned eighty. Though she had been buffeted by what seemed more than her share of ill fortune, had created more happiness for herself and her neighbours than anyone else I’ve known. For years her humble home was a refuge for the troubled in heart. I asked the secret of her serenity and she replied: ‘ I found it when I overcame the bad habit of judging others.’

Come what may, guess the most complicated relation, difficult to reconcile is that of MIL and DIL...though there may be exceptions to this rule too......

There is no other quirk of human nature so common or so malicious. All of us at one time or another have been guilty of this cruelty. And many of us have been the butt of it.

A prominent minister says, “ I have heard people confess to breaking every one of the Ten Commandments except the ninth: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’. Yet this is the one we all break most often.”

What irreparable damage has been done to innocent people by thoughtless indulgence in this vice!

When a man asked Mohammed how he might make amends for falsely accusing his friend, he was told to place a goose feather on each doorstep in the village. The next day Mohammed said, “Now go and collect the feathers.”

The man protested, That’s impossible-a wind blew all night, and the feathers are scattered beyond recall.’

“Exactly”, said Mohammed, “and so it is with reckless words you spoke against your neighbour.”

A minor poet wrote: “ Stubbornness we deprecate, but firmness we condone, the former is our neighbour’s trait, the latter is our own.”

Why do we garnish our own traits but tarnish the other fellow’s?

The impulse to blame others is a defensive measure so ingrained in our nature that psychologists say that if you want to find out a man’s weak points, note the failings he has the quickest eye for in others.

A woman who was for ever complaining about the untidiness of her neighbour gleefully drew friend to her window and said, “ Look at those clothes on the line, grey and streaked!” The friend replied gently, “ If you’ll look more closely I think you’ll see that it’s your windows, not her clothes that are dirty”.

Lack of compassion in judging others arises from not knowing what lies behind a condemned one’s action. We need to hold in our hearts the Chinese proverb: “Be not disturbed at being misunderstood; be disturbed rather at not being understanding.” In our everyday relations with others we constantly risk blackening someone’s reputation by failing to look beneath the surface with the eye of compassion.

“ A lovely widow with three children moved into our village,” a friend told me, “ and in a few weeks she was the most talked about woman in the place. She was too pretty…..several men had been seen visiting her…She was a poor housekeeper…her children roamed the streets and ate at other peoples houses….she was lazy and spent most of her time lying on the sofa reading.

One morning, our pretty neighbour collapsed in the post office, and the truth soon came out. She was suffering from an incurable disease and couldn’t do her housework. She sent the children away when drugs could not control her pain. ‘ I wanted them to think of me as always happy and gay’, she said. ‘I wanted to pass away alone so that they would never know.’

“ The men visitors were her old family doctor, the lawyer who looked after her estate and her husbands brother. The village was kind to her for the remaining months of her life, but the gossips never forgave themselves.”

We can halt hasty judgement in its tracks by asking ourselves: might I not be as bad, or worse, if I was faced with that person’s troubles and temptations? The habit of judging others tends to reveal about us that unattractive character flaw, self-righteousness. Our very attitude seems to say: ‘I must be good, look at all the bad I’m finding in others.’ Christ’s classic rebuke to self-appointed judges was, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw the stone.” I heard of a businessman who keeps on his desk a stone with the word ‘first’ lettered on it-a strong reminder.

A recent census of opinion among clergymen brought out four simple rules for overcoming the habit of judging others.

First: Be sure you know all the facts, so that your evidence is not merely circumstantial. We share the responsibility of wrong judgements by listening to them. “ Whenever I hear a sensational story at someones expenses,” says R.V. C Bodley in his book, In search of Serenity, “ I try to gauge the mentality and motives of the raconteur and either discard everything that has been said or try to discover what started the yarn. Do it yourlsef before hastily judging the subject of gossip.”

Second: Remember that, however certain another’s guilt may seem, there may be extenuating circumstances. Years ago Sioux Indians had an impressive ritual. A brave who was about to set forth to visit other tribes would raise his hands towards the sky and pray: “ Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until I have walked two weeks in his moccasins!”

Third: Give your habit of judging others a “reverse twist” by focusing on the graces of people, not their faults. Dr. Walter Moore tells of a lecturer who began his addresses by pinning a square of white tissue paper on the blackboard. Then he made a tiny black spot in the center. Asked what they all saw, all present replied, “A black dot.” The spaker said, “Don’t any of you see a large square of paper?”

Develop the habit of seeing the good in people. Comment on it. Practise the art of good gossip. It is amazing how this habit of searching out the best in others enlarges our own souls. Look in your mirror when you are inclined to pronounce harsh judgement on another and see how crabbed you look. Then speak well of someone, and watch kindliness flood your face.

Fourth: Leave all judgements of others sins to God. Arrogating to ourselves the functions of the Deity is as presumptuous as it is irreverent. Bishop Fulton Sheen, famous in America for his broadcast sermons, says: “ The separation of people into sheep and goats will come only on the Last Day. Until then we are forbidden to make the classification”.

So: Try to know all the facts; study the circumstances; focus on the good in people, and leave all judgements of others sins to God.