Action Always Beats Intention

last year, during a training program, a facilitator was conveying an idea of how we judge / perceive ourselves versus others. often times, we judge others by our perception, but we judge ourselves by our intention (ex; i intend to be supportive and helpful, but sometimes unsolicited advice creates an insult). makes sense, right? after all, we can only be in our own minds. sometimes, when we see others act in a way that is "outside" of what our "expectation" is, we can judge, and put them in a "box", creating a perception of them that can stick (ex: she is always late).

the truth is, our intention is not always perceived by others the way we want it to be, and sticking others into a "box" based on what we perceive their actions to be could be considered a lost opportunity to better understand another human, who may be a lot more like you than you think, or perceive (ex: she was late a lot because her child was ill). try communcation, try an action based on your intention, help foster context for a perception that has been built that can knock down the walls that created the "box".

when i practice this, more times than not i have found i have learned more about myself, but, what is more important, i have learned more about another human, and together, we have kept ourselves from building walls, which i think we can all agree we do not need more of.