YOU THINK YOU KNOW, BUT YOU HAVE NO IDEA!

The words, You think you know, but you have no idea, came to my mind today. I originally heard them at a youth rally many years ago.

I was having dinner with several friends and the conversation turned to current events and who is guilty of what.

I was shocked to hear one friend say, “She’s absolutely guilty!” (Now exactly how does one know that for sure? How many times has someone been put into prison, only later to find out they were innocent, or conversely someone was set free and later found to be guilty with new evidence.)

Most recently this friend had been in a local paper in an article that was false and unsubstantiated. My friend hadn’t even been contacted before the article appeared to see if there was anything that he wanted to say in his defense.

“That’s exactly what has happened to you!” I complained. “How can you say so quickly, that she’s guilty? We’ve heard only what the media has to say!”

I do not want to discuss the guilt and innocence of people here. I only want to point out that things are not always as they seem. Many times we get on the band-wagon without knowing all the facts and hearing both sides of the story, realizing that everything is tainted from each person’s point of view.

You think you know, but you have no idea!

I wondered, why we are so quick to point fingers and judge others? Our society, with modern day media and social networking, etc., is overly involved in living the lives of others. From sports figures to movie stars and anyone else who comes up in the media, we judge, condemn and criticize.

I came to the conclusion that if we were living our own lives, truly living; we wouldn’t be so concerned about the cycles of life others are going through. As long as we can obsess about how others are living, guessing and putting our own projections onto them, it keeps us off of our own personal journeys. Which is the only journey that matters.

When we can find compassion for ourselves, we’ll have it for others. Once we stop judging ourselves, we’ll naturally stop judging others. We can begin by being nice to ourselves, loving ourselves. After all, conceivably we can be the only person that we’ll know our entire lives! Let’s be friends!

As Martin Luther King said, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere! (Including injustice to me!)