Meditation #52: Everyone suffers, everyone deserves better.

Everyone deserves to be treated kindly. Think about how much you’ve suffered in your life. Whether it’s been great or small, your suffering was and is your own to bear. Remember that everyone you meet is suffering, too. Just as much as you, if not more. Many people have ailing parents who need care, if they even still have parents at all. They have failed and/or failing relationships. Mounting debt that follows them. Personal psychological baggage that weighs them down and makes everything difficult. At the very least, even the most serene and unencumbered person you could meet–the Dalia Llama, for instance–is dying. Even if they aren’t suffering from this affliction, it is something they must inevitably face, and that alone should warrant compassion and patience. But as I said, most of us suffer greatly under the burdens of ourselves. The next time you are inclined to speak to or think about someone in an unkind way, try to see them as a terminally-ill patient who is suffering mentally and physically every moment, and send compassion their way instead.