There is a lady who comes in the library who only gets movies. She has started to complain that she has seen all the ones we have. We have a very large collection of movies, but she gets several at a time so it is possible that she has seen them all.

But then she’s limiting herself. She isn’t getting any of the TV series. She isn’t getting anything educational. She isn’t getting anything that is foreign and has subtitles.

Just movies. All the time. Every time.

Somehow I can’t comprehend having this much spare time to throw away on watching movies. It totally goes against my philosophy of being mindful and not wasting your life. But it is my philosophy and not hers, and I’m trying to be here, in the moment, trying to see things from her perspective.

I’m not doing very well.

I can’t relate. I’ve suggested she get some books because we have a lot of these and she’ll never run out. Her reply – “I don’t read”. Perhaps she can’t read. Perhaps she has some sort of learning disability. Perhaps she just doesn’t like to read. She wouldn’t tell me why she only wants movies. I want to know because I want to work around it. Maybe I can talk her into audiobooks.

Maybe I’m trying to make her in my own image. Maybe I need to let her be her and not think she is wrong for not being like me.

And isn’t that really the problem when we try to “fix” someone? Tolkein tells us that “Not all who wander are lost” and we think that sounds cool. We use that as a defense when someone is trying to make us conform. But sometimes we forget it when we are dealing with other people.

Or at least I do.

Because to let someone be different, to let her be herself and not be like me is somehow to say that maybe I’m not ok the way I am. Deep down I know this isn’t true, but I feel that is my unconscious motivation.

We either like ourselves or we don’t. We either are comfortable with other people’s differences from us or we aren’t.

We often compare ourselves to others. She’s taller than me, so I’m too short. She has beautiful hair so mine is mousy. She is larger than me so I’m so proud of the fact that I exercise. She is smaller than me so she is too skinny.

See how bizarre this is? Everything is in relation to ourselves. It is as if we are the center of the world.

Remember how in the Middle Ages people thought that the Earth was the center of the solar system and that the Sun went around it? Never mind the fact that the math didn’t work out to prove this was true. The authorities (the Church) said it was true and it wasn’t questioned.

Until it was.

Galileo discovered the truth and he got excommunicated for it. The Church has an issue with truth. But so does any authority system.

Now it is time to do the same to our view of others. Instead of heliocentric, we are egocentric. It’s time to stop comparing ourselves to others and stop trying to “fix” them because they aren’t broken.