One of the truths that helps me to cope with the mistreatment that one sometimes finds in life is that the way other people think and act toward you is not how we really are (thankfully) but how they are. This is not to say that our actions are meaningless in how other people see us. Far from it. Our actions and behaviors are the inputs in how other people see us. However, they are processed with other inputs (including our perception of those behaviors and actions) and read through mental filters developed through years of practice, and then the output is a judgment or opinion about someone as well as treatment based on that judgment and opinion.

There are plenty of places for things to go awry. For example, behavior and actions, like most facts, need interpretation. When we interpret something we impute a motive and an intent to a given action or behavior or text. All too often we are not conscious about the truth that we automatically interpret, and so all too often we view our interpretation as “fact” because interpreting comes so readily and so subconsciously to us. And because this interpretation is loaded with our expectations and past experiences, it is easy for that interpretive filter to become clogged with self-deception or the junk from years of life in a corrupt and evil world, leaving us unable to appreciate the behavior and actions of others for what they really are.

Even behaviors need context. Conversation that would be highly insulting in a business meeting would be very normal for the locker room chat of math nerds or athletes. And we are more comfortable with actions from people we like or think well of than people we think ill of. This is perhaps one of the most insidious problems of our treatment of others. If we think ill of someone, we feel justified in being rude or harsh to them on account of our idea of their character (which may be wrong) apart from the actual reality of their behavior and actions. Because we will think ourselves justified to behave our worst, we will guard our thinking and behavior less than we would if we liked someone or wanted them to like us.

But how we treat other people does not tell us or them who they are. It tells us who we are. If we treat people with love, it is not because they deserve love, but because we are loving. If we treat others with respect, it is because we are respectful. If we treat others with abuse, it is because we are abusive. If we treat others with contempt, it is because are disdainful and contemptuous. In our minds, we think we treat others as they deserve, and so we act as judges, portioning out our love and respect to those we like, and saving our disdain and abuse and contempt for those we despise and fear. Doing so makes us judges of the hearts of other people, judges often with evil thoughts and inaccurate knowledge that we are unwilling to admit or correct, because it is on the level of assumption.

It is easy to point fingers at others and do this, but much more difficult to point the finger at ourselves. After all, as much as we recognize the faulty filters of others, there is not much that we can do about what is inside the minds of others, even if we are able to infer some of it from actions and behavior. Even where we are aware of the mental filters of others, our ability to usefully counteract mistaken impressions and interpretations is limited, especially because once people have an interpretation about someone else, everything tends to be read through that interpretation, especially if it is a negative one. And such interpretations are easy to spread if others believe our judgment to be accurate.

Since we cannot do very much about others except behave as best as we can and do our best to minimize the bad behavior that enters into someone else’s interpretation (even though this can be hard, as just about anything nice can be interpreted the wrong way if someone is in that frame of mind), most of our work must be on our own filters. And in our own filters, we must work very hard to maintain love and respect for others at all times, even when we have to do unpleasant things. We cannot let our sense of justice in dealing with improper behaviors (which must be dealt with) lead us to the level of being judges with evil minds concerning the hearts of others, which we cannot see. This is a difficult thing to do, but at least if we can do so, we will be good because we treat others well, no matter how bad it feels.