What goes on in my head isn’t public knowledge. You can’t go up to a stranger, an acquaintance, or even a close friend and ask “what is she thinking right now?” because they won’t have an answer. They might have a guess, but there is no way of knowing for sure what I am thinking about at that moment. This is a fact, a basic understanding to every psychologist out there. Let me repeat that: it is impossible to know exactly what a person is thinking about. The only way you’d know for sure is if I told you. Am I going to? Maybe if you ask, but most likely I won’t tell you everything. That’s my business, not yours. If it is your business I’ll let you know. The decision to say what one feels or thinks is entirely up to them and you don’t have the right to disagree. Yeah, it’s frustrating, but as you probably already know, life isn’t fair. You don’t know what someone thinking, you can’t feel what they feel, and you can’t make choices for them. You certainly can’t make them change. That’s under their control. Since you aren’t in their head and haven’t experienced what they’ve experienced, how would you know what’s best for them? How would you know what they want? You don’t. You’re allowed to give advice and you’re allowed to disagree, but it isn’t your place to criticize that choice and it’s certainly not right to try to influence other people’s opinions of the choice. That’s up to them. You don’t know what goes through a person’s head. Some people are better at hiding it than others, but even then you still don’t know the entire thing. How would you feel if people were going around telling people things about you that are completely incorrect? You’d be angry, upset, or frustrated. So why are you going around doing that yourself? You might be so sure that what you’re saying is true, but that doesn’t make you reliable. Do you have all the information? Do you have every detail?
Let’s say, for example, you have to give a presentation for a class or for work. You are aware of the topic and you’ve formed an opinion about it, but you didn’t do any further research and you don’t have any sources to back you up. But you give the presentation anyway. Are people going to take you seriously? No. Are you going to get a good grade? Absolutely not. You didn’t put in the effort in to deserve that kind of recognition. You’re unreliable. You’re not going to be trusted. Their knowledge of you isn’t going to make them trust you in the future. It’s pretty much the same thing.
I don’t care if you don’t like the person. I don’t care if you don’t know them and don’t care to get to know them. Know when it’s your place and when it isn’t. Know that you don’t know everything. Treat people with the kind of decency you want for yourself.
Don’t try to explain something you don’t understand.
