Understanding Makes Room for Compassion

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THE PRACTICE OF COMPASSION

It can be difficult to understand how someone arrives at a belief, makes a choice, or behaves in a way that feels completely incomprehensible from where you are standing.

I would never do that.
How can they not see what they're doing?
How could anyone believe that?
They should know better.

From inside your own experience, those conclusions may feel obvious.

But you didn't arrive at the way you see the world in isolation.

You have been shaped by the family you grew up in, the people you've known, the experiences you've had, what you've witnessed, what you've been taught, what you've questioned, what you've had reason to fear, what has made you feel safe, and what life has repeatedly shown you to be true.

So has everyone else.

Two people can live in the same world and develop very different understandings of how that world works—not simply because one is paying attention and the other isn't, but because they haven't experienced the same world.

Understanding that doesn't require you to abandon your own judgement or assume every perspective is equally accurate.

It asks you to become curious about something you cannot see:

What happened between this person's beginning and where they are standing now that helped make this belief, choice, or behaviour make sense to them?

What Helped You Know Better?

When someone believes something you find harmful, falls for something that seems obviously misleading, or behaves in a way you cannot imagine behaving yourself, it can be easy to arrive at:

They should know better.

But knowing better requires learning something different.

Maybe you had someone in your life who consistently treated people with kindness and taught you what kindness looked like.

Maybe someone introduced you to books that took you beyond your own experience and allowed you to see the world through lives very different from yours.

Maybe you grew up around people with different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, abilities, or circumstances and learned early that there was more than one way to experience the world.

Maybe someone encouraged you to ask questions instead of simply accepting what you were told.

Maybe you encountered enough different personalities to develop discernment—to recognize that confidence isn't the same as credibility, authority isn't the same as integrity, and hearing something repeatedly doesn't necessarily make it true.

Maybe someone challenged something you believed and gave you enough dignity in the process that you were able to listen.

Maybe you witnessed genuine generosity, accountability, courage, compassion, or leadership and learned to recognize the difference between someone who embodies those qualities and someone who simply claims them.

These experiences become part of the way you understand the world.

And their absence matters too.

Someone who has never had their assumptions meaningfully challenged has had a different opportunity to question them. Someone whose community largely shares the same beliefs has had less exposure to alternatives. Someone who has never personally known the people being discussed in an abstract social debate has less lived information to draw from. Someone who has never experienced trustworthy leadership, healthy conflict, genuine accountability, or compassion may have a very different understanding of what those things look like.

None of this means people are incapable of questioning what they have been taught or responsible only for what life happens to show them.

It means that before concluding someone should know better, it is worth remembering how much went into helping you know what you know.

And even then, you aren't simply collecting everything you've encountered and evaluating it objectively.

Two people can move through the same world and continually encounter different evidence about what kind of world it is.

If you believe people are fundamentally generous, you notice generosity. If you believe people will take advantage whenever they're given the opportunity, you notice examples of that. If you believe institutions are generally trustworthy, one set of experiences stands out. If you believe they're corrupt, another set does. The information that fits what you already understand tends to feel significant and credible.

Over time, the evidence accumulates.

You aren't simply holding a belief anymore. You have examples. Experiences. Stories. People you trust who see it too. Every new piece of confirming evidence makes what you believe feel increasingly obvious.

Which can make someone else's inability to see what you see even harder to understand.

But I can see right through that.

Maybe you can.

Why can you?

What have you experienced that taught you to recognize it? Who have you known? What education did you receive? What examples did you have? What conversations were you exposed to? What challenged your assumptions at the right moment? What gave you enough security to question something you had previously believed?

Being able to recognize something another person cannot yet see doesn't necessarily mean you are more intelligent, more compassionate, or more discerning by nature.

It means that somewhere along the way, someone or something helped you learn to see it.

Why Your Beliefs Are So Hard to Question

A belief rarely exists on its own.

Over time, it becomes connected to other parts of your life: the people you trust, the communities you belong to, the choices you've made, the way you understand yourself, and the explanations you've developed for how the world works.

That gives you more than an idea to reconsider when something challenges what you believe.

It gives you something to lose.

Belonging

Some of your earliest beliefs came from the people around you.

Family, friends, culture, faith, community, and other groups teach you what is true, what is right, who can be trusted, what people like you believe, and where you belong.

Questioning one of those beliefs may also mean disagreeing with people you love, separating yourself from a community, or challenging something that has connected you to others for much of your life.

Changing your mind may come with a social cost.

Identity

The more closely a belief becomes connected to your identity, the harder it is to examine it as simply an idea.

There is a difference between I believe this and this is part of who I am.

When a belief becomes part of how you define yourself, information that challenges it may feel personal. You aren't only being asked to reconsider whether something is true. You may also have to reconsider what it means about you if it isn't.

Trust

Evidence only has influence when you consider its source credible.

If you distrust the person, institution, profession, media source, or community presenting information, contradictory evidence may do very little to change what you believe. It may even reinforce the belief that the source itself cannot be trusted.

Meanwhile, information from people and sources you already trust has a much easier path in.

This is part of why two people can be presented with the same information and walk away more convinced of completely different things.

Certainty

Your beliefs help make the world understandable.

They give you explanations for why things happen, what you can expect from other people, what is safe, what is dangerous, and how you should respond.

Questioning an important belief creates uncertainty where there was previously an answer.

And sometimes one question creates many more.

If this isn't true, what else might not be true? Who was wrong? Who can I trust instead? What do I believe now?

Holding onto the familiar explanation may feel far more stable than entering a period in which you don't yet have another one.

The Cost of Being Wrong

Sometimes changing your mind requires more than admitting you misunderstood something.

You may have defended the belief. Made decisions because of it. Judged other people through it. Passed it on to your children. Ended relationships over it. Supported something because of it. Or dismissed information that you now have to reconsider.

The longer you have lived according to a belief, the more there may be to reckon with if that belief changes.

That helps explain why contradictory information doesn't automatically lead to reconsideration. Information that supports what you already believe is easier to incorporate, while information that threatens it may be questioned, dismissed, or interpreted in a way that allows the existing belief to remain intact.

Changing a belief can require changing much of what has been built around it.

That doesn't remove your responsibility to question what you believe, particularly when those beliefs affect other people.

But it does help explain why They've seen the evidence. They should know better leaves so much out.

Sometimes the obstacle isn't simply whether someone has encountered another perspective.

It's what accepting that perspective would require them to reconsider, risk, acknowledge, or let go of.

From Judgement to Curiosity

The purpose of understanding how someone arrived where they are isn't to invent an explanation for their behaviour.

You don't know everything that shaped another person. You don't know which experiences they had, which ones they didn't, what they were taught, who they learned to trust, what their world has repeatedly confirmed, or what changing their mind might ask them to confront.

You don't need to know their story to leave room for the fact that there is one.

That changes what becomes possible when you encounter something you don't understand.

Instead of:

How could they possibly believe that?

You might wonder:

What makes this believable from where they're standing?

Instead of:

They should know better.

You might consider:

What helped me learn differently?

Instead of reducing someone to a choice, belief, or behaviour you strongly disagree with, you can remember that you are seeing one part of a much larger human life.

Curiosity doesn't require agreement. It doesn't mean withholding judgement about whether something is harmful, accepting behaviour you believe is wrong, or abandoning accountability.

It simply leaves room for what you cannot see.

And that humility has to extend in both directions.

Everything that shaped another person's perspective has shaped yours too. There are experiences you haven't had, people you haven't known, information you haven't encountered, assumptions you haven't questioned, and things you cannot yet see from where you're standing.

Compassion requires enough humility to recognize that you have a perspective too.

Everyone has a reason.

You don't have to know it, agree with it, or decide it's good enough to leave room for the fact that it exists.

When Someone Doesn't Respond the Way You Expect

It is easy to make assumptions about what someone believes based on what they say.

It is also easy to make assumptions based on what they don't say.

When an issue feels important, you may expect the people around you to speak up, take a position, publicly condemn something, distance themselves from certain people, or respond with the same urgency you feel.

When they don't, their silence or restraint can begin to look like an answer.

If they cared, they would say something.

If they understood the harm, they wouldn't stay quiet.

If they disagreed with it, they would condemn it.

But you still don't know their reason.

Someone may be uncertain about what they believe or feel they don't understand the issue well enough to speak responsibly. They may be considering consequences you cannot see. They may be protecting a relationship, choosing where their influence is most useful, or contributing in ways that aren't visible to you.

They may also believe that condemnation would work against what they hope to accomplish.

Someone who wants another person to reconsider a deeply held belief may choose conversation over public criticism. They may listen when others would argue, remain in relationship when others would distance themselves, or try to understand the person behind the belief because they recognize that people rarely become more open when they feel attacked, humiliated, or reduced to everything someone believes is wrong with them.

That approach can look passive from the outside while being quite deliberate.

None of this tells you what someone's silence means.

That's the point.

Public expression is only one form of participation, and another person's response doesn't have to look like yours to come from care, conviction, or a desire for change.

Before deciding what someone's silence, restraint, or different approach says about them, leave room for something you cannot see:

They have a reason too.

Explore Understanding Makes Room for Compassion Through Journaling

Why prompted journaling?

What Shaped My Perspective?

Who or what has had the greatest influence on the way I understand the world?
What people, experiences, books, education, conversations, or opportunities exposed me to perspectives beyond my own?
What do I consider obvious now that I once had to learn?
When have I changed an important belief? What helped me become willing or able to question it?
Where might I have had opportunities to learn, question, or experience something that someone else hasn't?
What might I still have difficulty seeing because of the experiences, information, or perspectives I haven't encountered?

Leaving Room for What I Don't Know

Whose beliefs, choices, or behaviour do I find particularly difficult to understand?
What have I decided those beliefs or choices tell me about who they are?
Where do I find myself thinking, They should know better? What helped me know better?
Where am I assuming I understand someone's motives, silence, restraint, or response without actually knowing their reasons?
What don't I know about what shaped this person's perspective or what changing it might require of them?
Can I leave room for a reason I don't know without needing that reason to excuse what I disagree with?
What changes in the way I see this person when I remember that what I can see is not their whole story?