“No one is inherently bad, but everyone is the villain of someone else.”

-Lorenzo Zurzolo

That last part. Being a villain to someone else.

1.

I also believe no one is inherently bad. I think bad experiences and torturous elements like fear, insecurity, and pain make people hurt others, and themselves. It’s hard to sympathize with a villain, especially if they’re your villain. I wonder how impactful it would be to remember who that person truly is in the face of something unrecognizable that they’ve done.

2.

Sometimes we can’t help but villainize others when we want to make sense of something that went wrong. Sometimes, the villain is you. In shifting the blame to someone else, we absolve ourselves of the responsibility and therefore consequences of playing a part in something that hurt us or someone else. But who’s paying attention to the consequences of demonizing and punishing someone else for something deep down you know they’re not responsible for?

3.

We often forget that sometimes people don’t know they’ve hurt you until you elucidate it. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s that there’s an absence of knowledge on what had happened, or simply a different perspective. People often interpret things differently as no one is exactly identical to anyone else, much less in thought and how they see life. This is why giving people the benefit of the doubt is so important.

Until the next one

-C