Sometimes it's hard to see the other side.

The Blind Men and The Elephant

Once upon a time there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "There is an elephant in the village today." They had no idea what an elephant was, so they decided, "Even though we cannot see it, let us go feel the elephant." And each of them went and touched the elephant.

The first man, who touched the elephant's leg, declared, "The elephant is a pillar."

The second man touched the tail and said, "The elephant is like a rope."

"Oh no," the third man said, touching its trunk, "It is like the thick branch of a tree."

The fourth man touched the elephant's ear and said, "It is like a large hand fan," while the fifth man felt the belly of the elephant and added, "It is like a huge wall."

Finally the sixth man touched the tusk of the elephant and said, "It is like a solid pipe."

The six men began to argue about the elephant and every one of them insisted that he was right. They were becoming quite agitated. Just then a wise man was passing by, and witnessing the dispute he asked, "What is the matter?"

"We cannot agree to what the elephant is like," they replied, and in turn each man told what he had experienced of the elephant. "Which of us is correct?" they asked.

"All of you are right," the wise man explained, "for it has all of the features that you have described. And if you put your partial views together, you will have the idea for what a whole elephant looks like."

"Oh!" exclaimed the six blind men, and each of them were happy within their experience.

The moral of the story is that each of us sees things through the eyes of our own experiences and points of view. We can gain perspective by understanding and respecting the experiences and beliefs of others, so rather than arguing like blind men we could simply say, "Maybe you have your reasons."

--Indian Teaching Story

I love this! I think it is so easy for all of us to judge (and of course, I am guilty of this also). The truth is, everything seems so easy from the outside looking in. You can never truly know what another person is going thru or what they are thinking or feeling unless you have been there before. We all think we have the answers, we all think what we know or feel is the RIGHT way....we might think it is the right way, but that doesn't mean it is the ONLY way.