No matter the situation, no matter the people involved, no matter the scenario…nothing is as it seems. We’re always missing details, contexts, nuances and perspectives. That doesn’t seem to stop us from second-guessing others, judging, ridiculing, evaluating and myriad other things that are really best done only when all the information is available and understood…which, of course, is never.  That’s because life is…complicated. For us and everyone else. It just is.

There are many slogans, cliches and bumper-sticker wisdom phrases that touch on the matter – “walk a mile in their shoes,” for example – but they understate the issue. They focus on how we should consider what is going on in another person’s life. True enough, but there is more. We need to acknowledge how the person we are talking to or engaging with has beliefs, values, wounds and scars, highlights and low points, questions and answers, successes and failures, love and ambivalence, and so on, all of which have been born in experiences and genetics. Each person is more complicated than even they can understand fully. Imagine how complicated any situation is with one, two, three…hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of people involved. Life is…complicated.

There are a few keys that help us to not fall into the trap of failing to recognize the complicatedness of life and everyone in it:  patience, humility and love. We were told to love one another; easier said than done. Love comes easier when patience and humility support us; definitely easier said than done.

Until we are able to live with the three keys in mind, perhaps we should exhale slowly while repeating quietly to ourselves, “Life is complicated,” before we speak out, judge, ridicule, evaluate or second-guess.