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So here's the thing: all of this stems from a recent trip to visit a close friend, when I started noticing something in our conversations that made me laugh at first and then, naturally, made me think a little deeper about myself.
Throughout the trip, she would mention something she absolutely hated when other people did it, but then almost immediately follow it up with some version of, "Unless I'm doing it." It ranged from driving and people changing lanes, to pedestrians crossing when they shouldn't, to people using AI and plenty of other things that apparently become much less offensive when we are the ones doing them.
At first, I thought it was funny because she was so open about it, but the more I listened, the more I realized there was something incredibly human about what she was saying. She was simply saying out loud what I think most of us do without realizing it: we judge other people's actions based on how they affect us, while judging our own actions based on why we did them.
There is a lesson in there that I try to carry with me at least 90% of the time, because I would love to tell you it is 100%, but none of us are 100% all the time.
Life gives us blind spots, and often we don't even realize they are there, which makes sense because, well, they are called blind spots for a reason.
I used to get incredibly upset when someone cut me off while driving, and when I say upset, I mean my hands were flying around the car, my angry face was fully activated, the wrinkle between my eyes that I now get Botox on twice a year to prevent it from getting more prominent, and my big mouth was definitely in motion. I'm not even sure actual words were always coming out, but I wanted to make absolutely certain the person in the other vehicle knew they had done me wrong.
The nerve of that driver, because obviously they should have checked their blind spot, paid better attention and known I was right there before they decided to move into my lane and nearly scare me half to death.
Except I have been that driver too, and not just once, but probably countless times throughout my years of driving.
I have checked my mirrors, looked over my shoulder and still somehow missed a car sitting exactly where I couldn't see it. Of course we should always check our blind spots, but sometimes our eyes are looking while our brain is somewhere completely different, thinking about work, dinner, our kids or one of the other hundred things floating around in our heads.
Then there are pedestrians, because we can sit in our cars annoyed when someone crosses the street without waiting for their turn, only to become that pedestrian another day when we are rushing across because we are late or distracted.
Funny how differently something can look depending on which side of the windshield we happen to be standing on.
The more I thought about this, the more I realized, we are incredibly quick to notice behavior in other people that we somehow overlook in ourselves.
I have lost my cool, been sharp when I didn't need to be, made judgments without knowing the entire story and said things in the wrong tone. I have been impatient, distracted and wrapped up in my own world, which makes it pretty hard for me to demand perfection from everyone else while knowing how imperfectly I have handled plenty of situations myself.
Recognizing that has made giving grace to other people easier, but I don't mean making excuses for people, ignoring bad behavior or allowing someone to continually treat us poorly. Grace and boundaries can exist at the same time, and understanding that someone is human doesn't mean giving them unlimited access to you.
What it has changed for me is how quickly I decide what someone's actions mean about who they are.
If someone is a jerk to me, but other people genuinely love them, respect them and think they are wonderful, does my experience automatically mean they are a jerk, or did I experience one side of a complicated human being on a particular day?
I certainly would not want someone taking one of my worst moments and deciding that moment represents everything about me, yet it can be incredibly easy to do exactly that to someone else.
Intent matters too, because not every action that affects us negatively was done with the intention of hurting, disrespecting or irritating us. The driver who moves into our lane probably wasn't plotting how to ruin our commute, just as the person who says something the wrong way may have no idea how their words landed.
That doesn't erase the impact, but it can change what we choose to do with it, and for me that has meant carrying around a lot less anger because anger takes time, judgment takes energy and replaying something over and over gives one interaction far more space in my life than it probably deserves.
I am far from righteous, and there are absolutely still moments when my hands start moving in the car and that wrinkle between my eyes gets another workout. I still get annoyed, make judgments and occasionally decide someone is a complete idiot before remembering that I have probably been the idiot in someone else's story more than once.
Maybe that is why my friend's "unless I'm doing it" stuck with me, because beneath the humor was a pretty accurate description of how easy it is to see someone else's blind spots while completely missing our own.
From me to you, maybe before we decide who someone is based on one action, one mistake or one moment, we should check our own blind spots too.
Mother, author, entrepreneur and founder of Dandelion-Inc, Lisa Resnick wants to hear your story. Share memories with her by emailing lisa@dandelion-inc.com.