On the Stories of Other Lives

Sometimes I catch myself getting irritated out of nowhere. Someone walks too slowly through the airport, someone freezes up at the checkout, someone takes forever to merge into traffic — and something flares up inside me at once: “What’s the holdup? Move it, or let me through!”

Sound familiar? We’ve all been in that state of inner rush, where someone else’s “slowness” lands like a personal insult. As if the world owed it to us to match our pace. And in those moments we forget the main thing: every person has their own reality, their own story — one we know absolutely nothing about.

Not long ago I saw a short video. The camera simply watched people in a café while, off-screen, their stories were told. First, just ordinary customers: one drinking coffee, one staring at a phone, one sitting in silence. And then — the context. And everything changes.

— a man has just lost his job and doesn’t know how to tell his family;
— a woman came to the café alone today — on the day that would have been her fiftieth wedding anniversary;
— a young guy recently finished his cancer treatment and worked up the courage to go out “among people” for the first time;
— a young woman got into her dream university and still can’t believe she pulled it off;
— an elderly couple dreamed their whole life of having children and never could;
— a man has just received a message from his son, serving in a war zone;
— a little girl is growing up without her mother, who died giving birth to her, and doesn’t understand why her father avoids meeting her eyes.

Each of them is a universe. With pain, joy, fears, hope. They’re in a hurry too, they’re tired too, they too might bump into someone by accident — because what’s in their head isn’t a life, it’s a storm. Each of them is fighting a battle we know nothing about.

At some point I caught myself watching the video with a lump in my throat — from realizing how many times I’d walked past someone’s pain, deciding it was “unimportant.” How many times I saw only myself.

We want sympathy, attention, love from the world — yet we rarely give them first. We demand to be understood without trying to understand.

Every person is a story. With their own drama, their own victories and defeats. And sometimes it’s enough just to slow down a little to see it.

Here’s to remembering that no one lives without pain. And kindness, shown even to a passing stranger, can change someone’s day — and sometimes a whole life! 😎