7. Remember: you are doing it too

Dear Marlowe,

Once I was complaining to a mentor about somebody’s behaviour that I found objectionable. They were reckless, I said. Irresponsible. They were being careless with someone else’s money. 

His response stopped me in my tracks: “Why don’t you tell me all the times that you’ve done those things?” 

At first I protested, but he kept pushing me to tell him, and you know what? Turns out I’ve done those things a lot too over the course of my life. 

From that moment on, whenever I found myself angered by something, I recalled the times I’d been guilty of the same charge. 

Sure, there can be degrees of magnitude. But the point is that everything is in all of us, and the things that annoy us most about others are often the things we like least about ourselves. 

I have found that reflecting on this in the moment has made me more compassionate with others, less quick to judge and far less quick to anger. You may find the same.

Love, 

Dad
****
Letters to Marlowe is a personal project to pass on valuable life advice to my son.

See this post on LinkedIn