Time for me to fess up. If there’s one phrase that my wife would like for me to stop using, it’s this one: “It’s so easy!” Probably right behind that is “just do it.”

She hates both of those sayings and it took me a long time to understand why.

On my journey of self-discovery, I think it’s important to point out my own mistakes and share the story with you so that hopefully you can learn from what I’ve done wrong.

What has been hard for me to understand is that other people’s brains don’t work like mine. If someone has ADHD, has Asperger’s Syndrome, or just sees the world differently, that doesn’t mean that something that’s easy for me to do is also easy for them.

I might find it easy to write or call someone on the phone, but someone else might not be able to do those things easily.

When I assume that other people have the same skills or can do the same things that I can, I’m projecting my way of life onto them and that isn’t just unfair, but it’s problematic.

I used to use this same failed logic as a kid. I didn’t understand why people couldn’t stop drinking alcohol or using drugs. Could they use their willpower and make themselves stop?

Not only did I not understand the disease of addiction, but I lacked the empathy and compassion necessary to see where people struggled.

Looking at a fish out of water and being upset that it couldn’t breathe air, wasn’t going to fix things. A fish can’t breathe air but needs to be in water.

People are different from me and from you.

How are they different? Why are they different?

And instead of me wanting them to do things the one I think they should, well, that’s not right and is never going to work.

There are many paths to the same finish line.

My path may not work for someone I love.

That’s a hard lesson for me to learn and one that I want to pass on to you today.

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.