Because We Wear Metal Boots...

Our families, our friend circle, our neighbours, our teachers, our colleagues, our circumstances, the books we have read, the movies we’ve watched, our interests, our knowledge, our exposure to the world, totally our worlds are different.

We meet; sometimes just as co-passengers on a short journey, sometimes sharing professional training for a few days, sometimes as classmates in a course or as colleagues at a workplace for a few years and sometimes for a lifetime.

No matter how short or how long our encounter with them is, we disagree, we argue, we fight and we break up.  It’s not about caring for long-term relationships and okay to be with passing clouds; it’s about understanding why all this happens.

Before we label a newly admitted girl who never talks to anyone as ‘egoistic’, we fail to understand that she might have come here after a disaster in her life! Before the boss insults a subordinate in the open workplace for being dull and unproductive,  he doesn’t attempt to think that the poor subordinate might have come after a bad time at home. A mother-in-law, who complains about her daughter-in-law with every relative and neighbour doesn’t realise that it takes time for the girl to adjust to a new family and forgets that the girl is far better than her own daughter.  The daughter-in-law who doesn’t care for the illness of her mother-in-law doesn’t ask a simple question to herself: ‘Would I remain so neutral if she were my mother?’ The parents who advise, scold, insult, and punish their child for scoring less in the exam miss out one fundamental point: once upon a time, they were children too and they were far worse in performance than their child. The teacher who brands a child as a ‘slow learner’ doesn’t realise that he may be slow but he is learning.

Why does it happen? Just because we wear metal boots.

The boots that do not let us step out of them. The boots that have made our feet so hard that we cannot step into others’.  We do not stand in others’ boots. We do not walk their steps. At least for a short time, we do not try to travel what they go through. We forget that once we were children and we now expect the children to be perfect. We forget what had once made us happy. So, we cannot make others happy now. We forget what had once hurt us. So, we do not stop hurting others.

We make two major mistakes: we think what makes us happy makes others happy too and sometimes we become incapable of understanding what makes us happy can create discomfort in them. We walk in our boots and assume that we are walking their way.

Stupidly, we do not try to understand others and we wonder why the world doesn’t understand us!