On Monday morning this week, I bent over to blow-dry the underneath side of my wet hair. I glanced at the base of the bathroom cabinets and was surprised to see a small, white sticker, something I have pulled off of countless green peppers. I have no idea how it got there, and if I had not been upside down, I would not have seen it, as it was almost hidden behind the lip of the vanity.
It made me think about seeing things from a different perspective. I have struggled my whole life to see situations from other people’s viewpoints, so I took it as a sign. No, not as a sign that I needed to buy more green peppers, but a signal that I should be less self-centered.
My first challenge was on my morning run. Boomer the dog loves cavorting outdoors with me, and cold, dark, and rainy weather suits him just fine. We are a compatible duo. I love running in the fresh air, at least after I resign myself to being chilly and damp. Our only disagreement is how often we need to stop. I have no objection to him stopping to relieve himself; after all, that is somewhat the point of our excursion. It is just that he feels compelled to lift a leg on almost every vertical surface – power poles, street signs, fences, hedges, mailboxes, and even garbage bins. I suspect that he makes his potty breaks as brief as possible, to ensure that he can stop 37 more times to piddle just a little bit more. More irritating is that he often stops to just sniff, while I hover impatiently, thinking he is going to pee. But no, he just wants to sniff.
I grit my teeth and resolve to see things from his point of view: sniffing for him is as intoxicating as a warm, freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie is for me. It fills him with incomparable pleasure. I sigh and feel slightly less peeved.
After arriving at my office, I read a form email from our law firm’s third-party 401(k) Plan administrator about how the annual census data I had provided “might be” lacking in one or more pieces of information, followed by a generic list of absolutely everything that the census required. The email was useless; it did not tell me what was missing, it simply listed everything. I dashed off a slightly antagonist response to the sender that he had not reviewed my submittal, he had just sent me a form, cover-my-rear-end, template message.
I was filled with regret almost immediately. I suspect he is a young assistant to our firm’s Plan advisor, and his job is to review dozens of submittals and quickly decide whether they are complete. I reminded myself that I had no idea what his workload was, what he was paid, or whether his supervisor’s expectations were reasonable. I guessed that he was probably a good friend to many, and it was likely that he was one of the brightest spots in his mother’s life. As a result, my next communication to him was more kind.
Later that morning, a client dropped by unexpectedly, not to lavish praise or pay a bill, but because we hadn’t responded to his two-day-old email quickly enough. I had read his communication promptly and had forwarded it to the lawyer in charge of the case. He, in turn, had scheduled a call with someone else to get the information that our client needed. However, we did not tell the client that we would have a status update for him later in the week.
I was more than a little grumpy about him showing up. I had sent him a detailed email before he stopped by, but he had not read it yet. He interrupted my work on another matter, and though he was wearing a mask, he insisted on shaking hands. But I reminded myself that his case was crucially important to him. He had been defrauded while making an investment, and our pursuit of the bad guy was delayed by both a bankruptcy filing and a contested probate. Our client has a long road ahead of him, though we are making progress, and it must feel interminable to him. Our brief meeting concluded cordially; he was grateful that I met with him, and I felt remiss for my initial impatience.
Towards the end of the evening, I made a phone call to a client who had a large, outstanding bill owed to our firm. I had volunteered to my partners to reach out to her to see how we might resolve both her bill and the large judgment she had against someone in a way that would benefit us both. She had not responded to our recent letter and emails.
I could sense the client’s wariness when she answered the phone. I knew she did not have the resources to pay her past-due balance. I made it clear that we shared a goal in collecting the judgment for her, and we briefly discussed how that might be achieved without her incurring more legal fees. Her relief was palpable even through the airwaves, and we set up a conference call for the following week to discuss it in more detail. I know she felt lighter because of our talk.
It is remarkable that a produce sticker reminded me that compassion is rewarding for both the giver and the recipient. I vowed to step out of my shoes into someone else’s more often.
And it probably wouldn’t hurt to wash my hair more frequently, as well. If nothing illuminating happens while I dry and style it, at least it would look better.