You can have 2 completely different versions of the same city. Let's say your neighbour keeps telling you the area is dangerous, you say it's safe after living there for 3 years. Is the reality that one of you is wrong? Not actually, assuming your neighbour works the night shift and you don’t.
You’d think 2 people can agree to disagree on how they see their own realities, but they actually can’t. A guy that grew up with privilege doesn’t know why his friend is freaking out about a cracked phone. It’s not because he’s a jerk, it’s because he hasn’t lived in an emergency fundless world. What may seem like reasonable advice to the guy with privilege, may come across as disconnected to the friend without it.
And it doesn’t stop there, everything in life and the world we live in has multiple angles and viewpoints, including politics, parenting, and relationships. You claim yours to be the one true flag, and you're creating a lot of good arguments to defend it. But the important question I have for you today is, What if you’re just reporting accurate information from your respective positions?
I'll give you another example. Let’s say someone cuts you off in traffic, you’get very angry. Later on, you find out their wife was bleeding in the backseat which was why they had to go that fast and cut you off like that. Now, your anger has nowhere to land. You weren’t wrong at all to feel angry, they weren’t also wrong to be driving quickly. You both had a different truth occupying the same space.
I’m not saying to tolerate harmful behaviours or accept all opinions as valid because there are some things that are just wrong.
But much of the trouble we experience on a daily basis comes from assuming that differences equal defiance or the denial that if someone looks at something differently, they are just pretending.
This post has been shared on Reddit by @paulinaa through the HivePosh initiative.