Wednesday June 1, 2011 1:18 p.m.

Everyone thinks they understand but no one really does. When someone makes a mistake you either don't understand because you haven't been there or you should because you have been there but no one can relate to the word understand because all we ever do is judge everything. How many times has someone claimed to understand you or what you're going through and in their next breathe to someone else they pass judgement. We don't take enough time to stop and really understand people. We hear facts and statements but become content with those. We don't dive into deeper meaning, reasoning, and feeling. We don't understand just how badly someone is being tortured or how badly someone is battling something unless we can put ourselves aside, let go of our own opinions and just take a look. Why is it that we don't do that? Is it because it takes time and effort? Is it because we honestly thought we had it figured out? Or is it that in some way we can never know another person without giving up our own ghosts and let them in, in return? Are we afraid of people seeing through us to the point where we don't try to see through others? I sat in a classroom one time, and I heard a friend of mine speak up on the topic of pornography and say, "If I knew someone looked at that I would stab them in the eyes." Now obviously she probably wouldn't stab a person in the eyes but her opinion was very clear. Little did she know how addicted I was to pornography. I can't even begin to explain how toxic it was to me. I literally saw everyone the same way. As a body of flesh. Some sort of sex tool. It poisoned my life to the point that I allowed it to run my life. I was not the same person at all. My mind didn't stop thinking about it. I withdrew myself from my friends and family just so I could look at it. Yet no one knew. NOT ONE person knew what I was dealing with. Everyone saw me on the outside and thought me to be an entirely different person...no one even took the time to look deeper and see what was happening. So yeah we think we have people figured out but we don't and we think we understand people but we don't. So let us ask ourselves...why? Why don't we take a bit more time, have a bit more compassion, and look a little bit more?