To Walk a Mile Without Shoes

It's been said that to understand someone, you have to walk a mile in their shoes.

And most of us know that this phrase doesn't mean to steal their shoes and walk in them, but that we need to not judge others until we understand what they're going through.

But before you can put on another person's shoes, you have to take off your own.


I may have taken that phrase a little too literally today.


But the concept remains true.

Too many times we try to understand the people around us by putting ourselves in their situation, but when we put ourselves in their situation, we react differently to it then they would.

In other words, we try to walk in their shoes while we are still wearing our own.

Before we can try to understand our friends, family, mortal enemies, ect. we have to take away our own judgements and our own ways of seeing the world, or else we run the risk of saying "Oh, I've faced worse trials than that!" or something to that extent.

What seems like the smallest incident to you could mean the world to someone else.

Sometimes we should practice not just understanding others, but also how to recognize and strip away our own judgements or preconceptions about our lives and the lives of others.

 
And when we walk for a while without shoes, we can discover interesting things.

Like that snow is really cold on bare feet.

And that when you see a horse just wandering around, you tend to look at the ground a lot, just to make sure you're not stepping in anything.  ;D

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