“We tend to judge others by their behavior, and ourselves by our intentions.”

Jan 15, 2021. 15/365 days of Daily Writing Practice + life lessons journal of sorts. I’m committing to writing ~100-word article daily. Short or long-form. Ugly or brilliant. The objective is to write daily for 15 mins without fail, even when life happens.

Guiltiest of all guilty.

When I find myself less mindful of my thoughts, my instant, archaic reaction is to judge others by their behavior against my standard. I will only stop myself when I catch me judging without compassion.

And then I’m quick to defend my wrongdoings with what I know are my intentions. My good intentions, for a lot of times, have been executed poorly.

So I’ve been told.

I say things straight, no sugarcoats, bluntly, piercing, insensitively, at pure face value without thinking how hurtful it may come across because I know, in my deepest of heart, I did it with the purest of intentions. And they say people who matter will understand. And that stuck with me.

But then I’ve been told, while intentions are great, there’s always a better way to say things. Nicely. Kindly. Lovingly. Compassionately.

I knew that in theory, but I got stuck in the belief that people who matter will always understand.

Apparently, people who matter also have burdens and troubles of their own and they have no headspace left to understand anyone else anymore. So that belief isn’t quite applicable in modern times when time is scarce and mindfulness is rare. Everyone’s just preoccupied with their own to-do lists, worries, and plans.

It was romantic, though, to think that you can actually just be your bare self with people who matter without worrying about ANYTHING else.

In my ideal world, it is how things will be. And no one’s easily offendable because we all operate in the presumption that the intentions are always pure and for the goodness of the other.

In the real world, though, that’s one thing I’m relearning. How to be kinder, more compassionate, careful, especially with words.

I know how powerful words can be — how it can both kill and change someone’s life. But somewhere along the way, I forgot that and I became mindless and careless with it.

Looking back, the tactless phase was a developmental phase. It was a time when we were being trained to speak our minds, to be a voice for others, to fight for what we believe is right.

I guess, they could’ve added in that lesson to speak our minds and fight for what we believe is right in a gentle, caring, compassionate way.

Now I almost always want to take back my words soon after I blurted them out but I guess each moment is a teaching moment; a reminder for me to practice kindness and compassion.

It’s better to be kind than right.

That’s what I’ve been relearning in my 30s after my 20s trained me to be right.

It’s fun, this journey, this life.

There’s no getting to perfect. We are always going to be works in progress. And that’s all right as long as we choose to be kind.