How would you react then? What would you say or choose not to say? How would your perspective switch from self-protection and enemy mode into kindness and understanding? What if what you see as “broken”, judge or shun as inadequate, lacking or wrong is just different? What if their brain and heart just world differently but are looking for the same things as you are? What if the problem was not them but you not creating the space to understand?

This is a question put forth by a dad of an autistic child, first frustrated by his son’s difference that felt like it kept them worlds apart, like Sawyer somehow couldn’t come and join the world his dad, William Kenower, viewed as real or right. William did something amazing, so radically counterintuitive to all of us who believe there is only one single path to be accepted, exist and be. Instead of trying to force his autistic son out of his imaginary world he’d closed himself into, his parents decided to join him and make an effort to learn what it is like to be him, to live in a world by his own measure. After all, the only thing they wanted was to be together, the world this would play out in was irrelevant. In the decades long aftermath later this act of kindness, even if you don’t fully understand another but are trying, opened up the boy and allowed him to step into the consensus of the real and changed all of their lives. The little guy who couldn’t connect to anyone, was acting out and wasn’t able to be integrated into peer groups or relate to anyone was now searching for company and expressing the desire to hang out. Because there was no more aloneness, isolation and force things opened and bloomed.

So what if William and his wife got it right – what if no one is broken but we just need to learn their language and get to know the person below the behavior? What if we understood the reason instead of trying to punish the outcome? What if that mean guy from work is not mean at all but compensating for vulnerability? If that pushy family member is not rude but feels unseen, unneeded or left out, if the depressed friend just feels disconnected or has an unprocessed trauma rotting inside? Judgement is a poisonous dart that kills relationships and connection. We cannot presume to have enough information to judge people by only one chapter of their book and conclude this is all there is. What if none of them were wrong, just fallible people doing the best they can at that moment, just as you are. Not being in the same place right now doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with them, it means you’ve just been given an opportunity to learn something and get out of your narrow world. Don’t look at peope as broken but break your heart open.