“If I get too close
And I’m not how you hoped
Forgive my northern attitude
Oh, I was raised out in the cold
If the sun don’t rise
‘Til the summertime
Forgive my northern attitude
Oh, I was raised on little light…” Northern Attitude, song by Noah Kahan

This incredible song is on my workout playlist and whenever it shuffles up it never fails to make me think about how much there is to know in life and how little I know of it beyond what I’ve been exposed to.

I accept this thought as fact due to the realization that in the context of the “bigger picture” acknowledging that I know little is crucial to my learning journey.

And especially during these periods when the world feels notably strained from the weight of divisiveness I require the reminder that

I ESSENTIALLY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT WHAT ANOTHER IS LIVING.

Or at the very least, not everything.

Regardless of whether they are the person I love and have laid next to in the marital bed for the past 35+ years, my neighbor up or down the road, or the person in line next to me at the grocery store.

Their reasons, their perspectives, their beliefs, their brain functioning, their possible prejudices, etc… based on their conscious and unconscious EXPERIENCE, are their own.

Regardless of whether I can understand and make sense of it or not.

It’s THEIRS.

THEY are their own. And my core belief, upon peeling back the often undisclosed layers of apprehension to reveal it, thus imploring me to remember and hopefully be compelled to move in it, is that THIS is their divine right.

Ideally this reminder serves to allow greater flexibility of mind, inciting a willingness to become curious rather than judgmental, allowing greater odds (though not perfect odds) that I’ll move in the depths of Spirit and learn, rather than become stagnant through the narrow-mindedness of ego.

I’m reminded that my main objective is not to convince another “to see things my way” but to encourage their efforts toward listening to and trusting in what their own instincts, intuition, and experience are attempting to communicate to them.

Which also inspires my efforts to do the same.

Their experience is their experience. Not mine.

We can each only know what we’ve lived thus far- viewed through the lens of our own individual life experience.

We can’t know what we don’t yet know– what we may never know.

And what we know tomorrow will most likely alter what we thought we knew for sure today.

But we’ll never know what it is to walk in another’s shoes.

Because that’s most likely an impossibility.

What we CAN do is remind ourselves that as free and wild spirits, we each have every right to BE as we ARE regardless of whether we get one another’s “whys” or not.

I probably don’t need to tell you, that’s damn difficult sometimes.

It tests me to the very core of my being. But I move in faith that it can be done, with the understanding that if I falter sometimes, it wasn’t for lack of showing up fully and trying.

So let’s forgive ourselves and one another when we inevitably fall short at times, by resolving to continue to try, regardless of how imperfect our attempts may be.

A weak muscle does not become strong overnight and neither does resolve. But with continued work, acceptance of pain, and acknowledgement of difficulty, we will build muscle with the strength to aid us in our every endeavor.

The same can be said for human interaction and connection. The “muscle” is already within. Whether we choose to build and utilize it is up to us, but it’s a decision we each must make for ourselves.