Empathy: Understanding that all humans are experiencing their own dynamic world of challenging situations & emotions, for their own personal reasons. And your girlfriend who gave you hardcore attitude yesterday, might have just had a stressful week and not enough noruishing food to create a healthy balance of neurotransmitters. She probably just needed a good massauge, some home cooked food & a set of ears to listen to her pain. Not you being a giant manchild, thinking her cussing you out in spanish is something personal against your manhood.

Or that car who cut you off going 85 miles an hour on their way to meeting you at a red light yesterday. Maybe they are in desperate need to get to the hospital to see their dying grandmother one last time. Maybe they have super low blood sugar and are on their way to get milkshakes to continue the viscious sugar addiction cycle. Or maybe they just dont care about the high probability of an eventual $300 ticket, the high risk of a car crash ending their life or the likelihood of putting other peoples life in danger with their pointless speeding all for the sake of getting to work an extra 5 minutes early, or getting stuck at a red light with you.

No matter what, it's always important for your own mental health not to take other peoples actions personally, and to try to understand WHY people act the way they do beyond the simple minded "people are dumb" or "people suck" mentality. Empathy is the most rational realistic skill of gaining that kind of emotional maturity.

I suppose it requires too much critical thinking for most people, i dont know. But i think this would make the world a much better place.

 

I think it's extremely important to recognize our inadequacies & to fully dedicate ourselves to improving on them, and to recognize the tendency to project those inadequacies onto other people.

Simple example:
Im 400lbs. I try really hard to believe i can be healthy while also being morbidly obese. I try really hard to believe im happy "just the way I am". But deep down inside, Im extremely insecure with how I look and how I feel.

Mister Christopher Johnson over there is lean, ripped, muscular and constsntly preaches his values of healthy eating, dicipline & exercise.

It triggers my semi-unconscious insecurity that I try so hard to cover up with "body-positivity".

So I leave bitter comments on his pictures telling him to "put your shirt onnnn". Or "ok mister conceited"

Or I comment on his posts about the importance of healthy behaviors saying things like "its unhealthy to care so much about how you look that you resitrict your food and hurt yourself with exercise" or "nutrition is great and all but it wont solve my type 2 diabetes" or "i tried nutrition and exercise one time, but it didnt work. Its psudoscience bullshit"

or "if i had good genetics i could do that too" or "where did you go to school to get your medical degree?" Or "yeah what ever. We're all gonna die one day anyway"

Blah blah blah, you get the point.
Of course there are many examples.
This is just the easiest one to throw out there on a whim.

Be honest about hoe you feel about yourself. Catch yourself when you feel the urge to dog at people. Ask yourself deeply and honestly if its coming from your own inadequacies. Maybe try telling yourself the exact criticism you're giving the other person and see if it matches up eith something you need to improve. Because ive found that 9 times outbof 10, my criticism towards others is generally me unconciously projecting my own criticism towards myself. (Although many times the criticism IS accurate for both parties)