From another's Perspective

Sometimes, I struggle with seeing things from another person’s perspective.  It all becomes perfunctory if I see it as relating to myself.  In that sense, I was always taking things personally.  In my life, there was a friend who stopped speaking to me.  Whenever she saw me, she rolled her eyes and acted like I did not exist.  I wanted to be liked and I did not want strife at that time.  One day, I realized how pathetic her life was.  I realized that her treatment of me was really a function of how she lived and if it wasn’t going to be me, it would have been someone else in our collegiate world.  One day, I saw her on the bus and life had rode her hard and hung her up wet.  I could see that she wanted to say something, but my stop came and that interaction would be over.  I have not seen her for almost twenty years.  I learned something from her.  Sometimes, you have to grow a thick skin and not take people personally.