Sometimes I wonder why people do the things they do and why they think the things they think. I can begin to find the answer by trying to perceive the way they perceive.
Sometimes simply having a different vantage point or position will help me understand another person. They might see things that I don’t, and I might see things that they don’t. For example, being in a position outside of immediate stress makes it a lot easier to see your options for getting out of it than being in a position inside the stress. Sometimes I need someone to point out other options I have to make things easier for myself. For another example, sometimes you or I cannot see the whole picture, so we need to step back and look at the whole thing before we decide if it’s a good picture or not.
Sometimes it isn’t so much about the position someone is in, sometimes it’s about the experiences we’ve had up to this point. Sometimes it doesn’t occur to me or someone else that something can be a problem because it’s never been a problem before. Sometimes it doesn’t occur to me or someone else that something can be a solution because it’s never needed to be a solution before. Maybe one of us never learned how to properly handle a specific situation, so the conclusion one of us comes to makes no sense to the one who does know how to properly handle the situation.
Instead of looking at people weird and wonder what in the world they were thinking, give them some grace and actually consider what they might have been thinking or feeling. Both of you could learn something very useful and even help each other out!