In a checkout line the other day, a young child was crying and crying. The man in front said aloud, “No child should be allowed to cry that long.”
It was 1:30pm, so I said, “It’s probably nap time, or they’re hungry.” (or maybe tired of being in the stroller while mommy shopped.) He didn’t say anything.
Then the lady in front of him said something about the child crying, and I heard the man tell her the child was probably tired or hungry.
I felt what I said helped him ‘re-see’ the situation from a more gracious viewpoint, and he in turn passed it on. Who knows, perhaps when he grew up he was told – ‘kids should only be seen, not heard’ or some other rendition. Sometimes, too often, we develop automatic bad thinking and begin to parrot what we’ve seen or heard without examining the truth of it.
On our part, we can help change another’s negative perspective by introducing a positive prospective.
Simply changing the perspective changed the whole atmosphere from one individual to the next.
Let’s pass it on!
Mrs. Goodfinder 