Everyone Has a Different Plate

Everyone Has a Different Plate

Sara Eisemann

“Maybe you think someone doesn’t have a lot on their plate compared to you. But maybe their plate is smaller than yours and doesn’t have a lot of room to begin with. Or maybe their plate is paper, and their flimsy paper plate can’t hold as much as your sturdy ceramic plate can.”

— Anonymous

Yom Kippur is here, and the topic of forgiveness is front and center in our minds. Throughout the year, it’s tempting to accrue a laundry list of complaints against those who disappointed us. We may hold our grievances like a security blanket, afraid that if we let go we’ll have to face some truths about ourselves or about the offending party.

On a superficial level, holding the other person completely accountable gets us off the hook, but also prevents us from avoiding some truth about ourselves. If every conflict becomes reduced to a question of who is right and who is wrong, we can easily lose an opportunity to look within and refine our inner world. Our insecurity can easily turn a conflict into a contest of moral superiority — I do more, therefore I am more. We can quickly go to a place of judgment where we measure the behavior of the other against the standards and tools we have.

But we could use a different lens. Rather than viewing the world from a comparative/judgmental lens, we can look at each other (and ourselves, for that matter) with compassion. When we feel slighted, or maybe even deeply hurt, because someone else didn’t live up to our expectations, perhaps we can show them some understanding when we realize that everyone comes to This World with a different set of tools. Perhaps our internal world is stronger, perhaps our energy level is higher, perhaps our coping mechanisms are better developed.

As we stand in line waiting for life to be scooped onto our plate, let’s understand that everyone gets a different plate. Some are sturdy, some are flimsy. Some plates are already full by the time we meet them in line. Looking at others from this perspective affords us an opportunity to be dan l’chaf zechus from a genuine place. This isn’t about trying to form some fantastical hypothesis about why they let us down; it’s about understanding that we don’t ever really know where someone is coming from and what they’re really capable of at any given moment. It makes it possible to actually not judge.