Threw away my poker face

We try not to hurt anyone. That’s the goal. At least, it has been stated as a goal. I heard it. I’ve said it.

We do what we feel we should in a way that we believe to be fair to everyone involved. We don’t want to hurt anyone. We say what we say and tell what we tell and give the glimpses that we are able. We don’t want to mislead. We don’t want to cause pain. We don’t want to cause strife.

But we just might.

This is what we have to come to grips with. The possibility that each thing we think we are doing to protect others may not be. That in our effort to not cause difficulty, we have caused pain instead. Even though our stated goal was to not hurt anyone. This is the choice we make with each action. With each decision. And it is ours to make.

But we don’t always see the other side. Our entire goal is to not hurt the other side, but because we are not on it, we don’t actually see it. We think we will do what we do and say what we say and act how we act in an effort to cause no pain. But we have not been them. At least, not today.

So we guess.

At our best, we are able to put ourselves in their shoes and act in the way that we would then want. But there are other times when we cannot. We simply do not have the experience required to put ourselves in their shoes. We do not know how we should act because we are incapable of understanding their motives and desires. We cannot know how they will or do feel because we have not or do not feel it. We cannot know how they will or even might react because we have not walked their walk. We think we do. We allow reason to provide us with answers. But that is a lie. That is our fallacy. It is our pride stepping in to say that we know what we do not know. This is especially arrogant because sometimes, not always, but sometimes…

Sometimes we could simply ask.