Two words that came to me during a particularly deep meditation were acceptance and understanding. I was told that these words are the most important words for me and this quote by JK Rowling sums it up perfectly.
How many times did you or someone you know ‘flew off the handle’ and started yelling before finding out the whole story? Before anyone reacts they should have a full understanding of the situation so no wrong conclusions are drawn.
When you are faced in a very difficult situation perhaps at work for an example. You may automatically judge someone to be an A-Hole but if you have an understanding about he or she’s background to learn why they act the way they do then you will be able to have a better acceptance of the situation. This example is similar to another quote, “Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.”
I remember reading this story in Reader’s Digest about a very grumpy woman that called a cab every other day to get to an appointment. The dispatch would always give the call to the same taxi driver and he always did not look forward to picking up this woman. The same thing happened every day that he drove her. She would be very negative, complain about everything, nothing was ever good enough, etc. The driver would try to keep from getting angry and block it out.
Then one day he wondered why she was the woman that she was and started asking questions and talking to her in a polite manner. He found out that she was on kidney dialysis and that is why she was always in a bad mood. They actually became friends and the taxi driver told her that he was going to the hospital to see if he was a suitable donor for the woman. When the tests were done he found out that he could donate a kidney to the woman and he did. Reader’s Digest was notified of the story and published it.
I found the story about the kidney donation online and you can read it here.