I had poured myself a glass of water at the nice cafe I was at, and about to order breakfast. As I turned from the table with water towards the counter, a moderately heavyset woman in her late 20's almost bumped into me.
As sometimes happens when you're walking one direction and someone else another, we each tried to move in the same direction a few times. She was somewhat clumsy in the process, and smiled an embarrassed smile.
I smiled back, but I was a little bit... something. Difficult to describe.
"Disdain," maybe.
She was heavyset, clumsy, and in the way. I wasn't particularly warm or friendly.
I noticed none of this, of course. It was near-automatic.
And I probably wouldn't have noticed, either.
But --
As I turned past her, I noticed what her blue vest said on the back: "Cerebral Palsy Society of the ROC."
Suddenly I realized the disdain I'd been feeling moments before. It came flashing brightly into my awareness. And rapidly replacing the disdain was the feeling that I'm an asshole.
She's either a woman going through some tough challenges in her life, or working to help people through tough challenges in their lives.
And I thought, "That's alright in my book," but then I realized -- there, I was doing it again.
The emotions we feel and hold are inside our own head and our own world. They then affect the outside world. There is a place for abstract judgments, reasoning over rights and wrongs, towardses and away-froms...
...but the place for that almost certainly isn't when dealing with other people. The greatest irony, of course, is that while the negative feelings are often felt by someone on the receiving end of them, they're happening most prominently in one's own mind and body. The poison is internal.
And external, too. A stark and harsh awareness. But one I'm grateful for. I need to judge people less.