Most of us misread how important we are in someone else’s day.
We calculate significance by measuring our own emotional reactions. The stronger we feel about something, the more important we assume it must be to everyone involved. The more we think about an interaction, the more we believe others must be thinking about it too. The more it affects our day, the more central we imagine ourselves to be in theirs.
But emotional intensity is not a reliable unit of measurement for anything except the state of our own nervous system.
Seneca understood this when he wrote about the difference between what happens and what we make happen mean. Most human suffering, he observed, comes not from events themselves but from the stories we construct around events. And the most painful stories we tell are usually the ones where we cast ourselves as the target of other people's intentions.
Consider the last time someone's behavior left you feeling diminished. Maybe they walked past without acknowledgment. Maybe they disagreed with you publicly. Maybe they made a decision that affected you without consulting you first. In that moment, their action became about you. It said something about your worth, your importance, your place in their estimation.
But what if it said nothing about you at all?
What if human behavior operates more like weather than like commentary? Weather isn't personal. Rain doesn't fall because it has opinions about your plans. Wind doesn't blow because it wants to ruin your picnic. Storms develop according to atmospheric pressures that have nothing to do with the people they affect.
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