Trying to See People for Who They Wanted to Be – Not Just Who They Became

I think a lot about what shapes the way I view people and why I see them through that particular filter. Some of my views are negative, admittedly. Some people cause me anxiety and cause me to feel resentment just from the uniform they wear or the sudden memory loss when it comes to harm they have caused. What I’m working on is trying not to stay in a negative world-view because somebody else was a short-sighted piece of crap.

But I know deep down that every person – no matter their profession – every “bad guy,” every cop, every keyboard warrior, every irate woman in the checkout line – is just a little kid under the layers. 

Everybody wakes up one day and wonders where the decades went. If you haven’t done that yet, just wait until you hit 50. I guarantee it’s going to happen. For me, it was when I found out my employer formed a company softball team and didn’t invite me to play. What? I was All-Everything in high school!  My arm is a cannon! I held homerun records! The hell? But I was 45 thinking I was still 17, and I played maybe one and a half games and turned my jersey in. Let the kids have it! Where did the time go?

I feel like maybe we are all  little kids at heart trying to be big in a world that’s always been loud, sharp, and way too fast. Some people were just never given the right tools. Some never had a role model show them what gentleness looks like. Some never made it out of survival mode.

That thought hit me hard this past year. I was in a whirlwind of chaos and the aftermath with someone with whom I have a very complicated relationship. But I saw it. It was just a flash of something in their posture or their voice – and all I could think was: “She’s just a little girl. That’s a scared little girl.” And I couldn’t unsee it.

What if they are about to break, and all they need is my forgiveness, or $100, or someone to sit with?

It didn’t erase the harm. It didn’t excuse the behavior. But it cracked open a little space inside me. It made space for compassion and resentment to live together mutually exclusively. 

I could still be madder than a hornet and simultaneously see that they’re probably doing the best they can with what they’ve got. Tools, remember? 

The world can be mean and cold. It can be impatient. I want to be someone who sees beneath the armor (which is mostly fake, and I know this because I do it. I am a different person inside than I am socially. I literally told my boss a few weeks ago that I “play a character” at work, and I meant it.).

Seeing Past the Surface Isn’t Easy

Deep down, I try to be someone who remembers the kid buried inside the grown-up bluster that is surrounded by society-appointed roles and assumptions, guarded by a protective shell. I want to see people for what they don’t show. 

So that’s the work I’m doing.

Trying to see people – not just for who they really are behind the wall, but for who they were, and who they never got the chance to become. Maybe it was because they had to go straight to work out of high school, or they had to care for an elderly parent, or they had a child when they were young. There are things that happen to other people that are genuinely not our problem, but that doesn’t preclude us from caring about those things and seeing them as the color that is outside the lines but is still beautiful.

I’ve seen that same childlike flicker in people in every facet of my life. Friends. Co-workers. Neighbors. Strangers at the Twice Daily’s. People online whose comments make me want to throw a chair. I catch myself reacting, judging, getting ready to unleash my evil twin Vinny (get it? Jenny…Vinny?)… and then, sometimes, I just stop. And I wonder – what if this person is still running on whatever wiring they got stuck with as a kid? What if they’re just trying to make it through today?

I’m not saying be soft or let people off the hook. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a person is redirect them, and I do a LOT of verbal redirecting, believe me… I’m not talking about excusing cruelty or pretending trauma doesn’t leave scars. I’m talking about shifting the lens just enough to keep choosing compassion, even when kindness doesn’t come easy. 

The truth has to be that some people are stuck in survival mode, and I get that. I’ve been there. Hell, I might still be there in some ways. And when you’re stuck like that, everything feels like a threat. Everything is a fight. Joy feels dangerous and uncomfortable. Trust feels impossible. You grit your teeth and motor through and pray nobody sees how close you are to becoming a suicide statistic. And I am trying to see other people through that lens. What if they are about to break, and all they need is my forgiveness, or $100, or someone to sit with?

Maybe that’s why it matters to try – all we have to do is try to see the kid behind the armor, the kid behind the badge, the kid behind the damsel in distress act. I am attempting to try to remember that most people are just doing the best they can with whatever broken tools they were handed. So to that a-hole—no, not that one—but the one who’s been an a-hole my whole life…life got away from me, too. You’re just doing the best you can, and I want you to know that I know it.

Looking for peace instead of just perspective? Visit Still Waters.