Seeing Ourselves--and Others

Literally, no man ever sees himself as others see him. No photograph or reflection ever gives us the same slant on ourselves that others see. It has often been proved on the witness stand that no two people ever see the same accident precisely the same way. We see through different eyes and from different angles. But if we could see things as other people see them we could come closer to knowing why they do what they do and why they say what they say. It is difficult to know the difficulties of another man’s job unless we have actually worked at his kind of work. Many a person has supposed that his neighbor has a “snap” because he hasn’t seen the inside problems of the other person’s position. If we haven’t employed other people it is difficult to appreciate the pressure of meeting a pay roll. If we haven’t struggled with a large investment, it is difficult to know how it would feel to see ourselves being slowly eaten out by interest and overhead and inefficiency. On the other hand, if we haven’t worked for precarious wages, or been out of work, or been on the borderline of actual need, we may not understand a person who is placed in this position. People who have never been ill, who have never been hurt, who have never been hungry, who have never known sorrow or severe disappointment, would likely find it difficult to appreciate the point of view of people who have experienced any or all of these adversities. It is difficult for us sometimes to explain some things concerning even our own intimate associates, perhaps because no two people, however close, have had exactly the same set of experiences or respond exactly alike to the same set of circumstances, and what we see from where we are sitting may be quite different from what someone sees from where he is sitting. The closer we can come to putting ourselves in other people’s places, the more likely we are to understand other people. And even if we can’t approach a problem completely from another person’s point of view, we must somehow make ourselves see that there is some reason why every man sees as he sees. And we must understand that a man isn’t necessarily stupid or stark mad merely because he doesn’t see what we see. If we don’t learn to understand others, we may make our own lives unlivable.