Life & Therapy

Being a toddler, my daughter struggles with the concept of sharing with others. She likes to play with friends, but she also wants to have things go exactly her way. She gets frustrated when they don’t. She is learning a painful but important lesson about what it means to live in the world with other human beings: it is impossible to be with others and have things go exactly how you want them to at all times.  There are benefits to learning this lesson, however, and I try to explain them as best I can in toddlerese. I tell my daughter that when she shares toys with friends, they might teach her ways to play with them that she might not have thought of before. When this happens, her world becomes even more interesting, and her toys more exciting.

Everyone that you have ever had a relationship with has contributed to your experience of the world, which makes life more interesting and fills it with more depth. Some of these relationships may have ended on a sour note, and some of them are still going on happily but all have influenced your life in some way. These influences helped make you the person you are today.

Here is a fun exercise to try: pick one or a few people from each decade that you have been alive. It could be someone you met once, or someone that was always there. Think of something that they did or said that positively influenced you. (I say positively, because this is meant to be a fun exercise). It could be in a seemingly small way, or in a much larger way. Take note of how this memory still impacts you today. For example, I will never forget being silently terrified on a plane when I was five, when a flight attendant smilingly gave me ice cream with a cherry on top. His action taught me that kindness can greatly reduce suffering, and even more than three decades later, I know this with all of my heart. This knowledge contributes to my emotional resilience and to my willingness to try to help ease suffering in others.

The people in this exercise helped to make you who you are. Whether they are still in your life, or even still alive, you carry a piece of them around with you every time you do whatever it is that they inspired in you. The converse is also true: by sharing your world, you have inspired others and contributed to who they are. Going forward with this knowledge, how would you like to influence the world that you continue to share with others?