Sitting on the Floor Listening to Two People Argue

Rather than looking at another’s experience in order to gauge the emotions, trials, and successes of your own life, look at your life and compare it to your own life. If there has been tragedy, see your own tragedy for yourself—here is your lowest moment. See that this other person across from you has had their own tragedy to deal with—a tragedy so far removed from normal experience that it is hard to understand and deal with—and know that these feelings are something that you both have, disregarding the specifics of the circumstance, disregarding a comparison to each other. Your lowest is your lowest. Their lowest is their lowest. No one has been lower. It is unfair to weigh in on the specifics of life because we have different lives. It’s not about the stage or the audience, it’s about reaching out and connecting—empathizing!—it’s about letting down your perceived, internalized, self-processed notions about the thing—anything, really—to allow the sharing of it to happen. Share, why not? Recognize each other, sure. But no one is made better by being worse.