“Maybe she was just having a really bad day,” Jude said as I grumbled about the unfriendly cashier at the supermarket. We’d run into her frosty attitude more than once, but on every occasion, Jude assumed she was ‘having a bad day’ and encouraged me to do the same.
Instead of getting stuck on my expectations of the cashier, I started to think about her — asking myself if I had been kind enough, considering what she might have been going through.
This month, I’m thinking out loud about how giving people a little more grace can make things easier — not just for them but for us, too. Rather than feeling frustrated or disappointed, we become more patient and considerate. I’m certainly not trying to excuse bad behaviour, but it’s important to build a habit of being quicker to show kindness than to pass judgement.
Changing our perspectives shouldn’t stop us from expecting basic courtesy from others, but it will help us handle rough moments better, without letting trivial issues weigh us down.
Even if the cashier had a perfect life (who does these days?) and being hostile was simply her nature, there’s a lot more to lose by dwelling on that. But on the flip side, what if her entire world was actually falling apart?
