In My Own Shoes Only

The Split Second-In Consideration of Others in These Trying Times

I am about to make a great pitch again to land a literary agent for my unpublished book The Split Second:  In Consideration of Others or Look Up from the Phone and How to Deal with Rudeness in Others; it sure is not easy to do. I am aware that agents’ offices have many manuscripts piled up in them.

As I get older (I am a very young 65-year-old man), I realize more and more my own take on a familiar colloquialism: I have to remember that I “walk in my own shoes and no one else’s” It is so easy for us as human beings out in the world to think we know all about another’s given situation when it could be possible that we know little at all. It was the great actress Katharine Hepburn who said of the man, Spencer Tracy, she loved most, “I never really knew you.” Yet, she considered him the love of her life and they spent 25 years together although Mr. Tracy was married to another woman. However, the wonderful Miss Hepburn has a point here: none of us know what it is like to experience what another is feeling. Consequently, I think it is easy to judge someone else or suggest what he/she must do or what he/she must think. I am reminded when any of us has a friend who has lost of a loved one, and it is easy to say, “I know what you are going through.” The issue here is we cannot know what that person is thinking and experiencing even if we have gone through the experience ourselves. Suffering a loss is different for everyone. What I do in a situation such as this is tell the one feeling grief, “I am here for you when you need someone.” Then I am ready to listen to him/her as needed. I only know what is going on in my mind.

These blogs stay short, right folks?