Instead of romanticizing the lives of other people, try to think about how they might feel. The teenager walking down the street in the black t-shirt with the angry look on his face may actually be faking that scowl to seem more self-assured than he is in this questionable neighborhood. The woman with the Chanel earrings and Louis Vuitton bag chatting on her cell phone at Starbucks may not be the stuck up city girl her looks suggest, perhaps she is visiting her sister and borrowing her accessories.
I am not a big people watcher, but I think the general ideas behind it might be useful in multiple situations. For example, to help dig up a smile when a frown is looming and imminent.
The frown: Instead of seeing someone who looks remarkably like J at the mall today with a blonde woman, I imagined J shopping with ‘her’, even though he would never shop with me. Instead of recognizing that the person there was not J, my mind began to spin and tumble, convincing me that J would shop with her, that he would even enjoy shopping with her.
Walking to the car, I noticed my hands were shaking visibly. And why? Because there are brown haired men in the mall? Irrelevant. My mind’s treacherous story had already spun itself a web all through my imagination.
As I got into the car I said out-loud to myself, for no reason I can account for, “what is on the other side”. I can only assume that I meant the other side of this river of heartbreak. The drive home convinced me otherwise.
The smile: Instead of seeing someone who looks remarkably like J at the mall today with a blonde woman, I imagine J shopping with ‘her’. Instead of being upset that J would shop with her when he would never shop with me, I wonder if J likes shopping with her, or if his being there is only a quick trip because she offered to buy him a new tie. Instead of being heartbroken and crying on my way to the car, I imagine the webs his mind would spin if he had seen someone who looked remarkably like me in an unusual place.
He is just as shaken as me.
That's the other side, and the view from here is so refreshing.
L
i like.
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