Where, When and Why of Our Thinking

"Choose not to be harmed, and you won't feel harmed. Don't feel harmed, and you haven't been."
--Marcus Aurelius

I had to read and meditate on the famous stoic Marcus Aurelius's wisdom for quite a while to sort out his thinking and how I could apply it to my life. It came to me slowly what he was driving at. It was the principle of taking everything personally while at the same time looking at what is said or done to you as a positive opportunity. 

Yes, everything good or bad is a positive growth opportunity.

After all, if you allow someone or something to make you angry, sad or worried, you have taken what you can control and gave the power to them. Transferred your personal agency to another. Sure, it feels good to yell at the person that cut you off in traffic, be angry at the baby crying in the restaurant or just saddened by hurtful words. Maybe this is the opportunity to look at our reactions, confront our feelings, and look at them in a new, less-painful light.

First, I would challenge us to put ourselves in the other person's shoes. I know that most of us have probably heard this a thousand times before, but if you are anything like me, it doesn't seem to stick very well, like worn out Velcro. I've taken to grabbing one of three words to apply to stuff like this: where, when or why.

I would apply any one of these three words to any of the previous examples. Applying my logic to someone who has said something hurtful to me, I would ask the 'Where' verb of myself: "Where does that person want this to go?'; "Where did they learn to act like this?"; or, "Where inside themselves are they suffering?"

Or you could choose 'When.' "When were they hurt?"

And lastly, "What can I do about it so that I don't suffer?"

Doing this for myself has been a rich experience, and it has been an opportunity for me to grow as a person, and be much, much more empathetic with others. I also have come to think of where what, and when as three basic questions that can help in the understanding of people and what has shaped them, drives them and ultimately leads to the greater reflective observation of their unique, troubled, challenging, wonderful, varied story.

Maybe that crying baby will grow up to be a doctor that will help cure a cancer, that person who cut you off was rushing to a hospice to say goodbye to a dying relative, or the person saying hurtful things may be expressing unconscious expressions of the hurt that was visited on them that they may not understand.