A husband was caught cheating on his wife. You would very conveniently believe the first thing you hear, and think, ‘alright, the husband is wrong, let us shame him.’ But this story has three sides- his, her and the truth.
Have you ever watched ‘The Affair’? The director, very interestingly builds up a suspense surrounding the affair between a married waitress and a married teacher, relating two different accounts of the same incident, one from each side. What blew my mind was how different both the stories actually were, also the stories of the exes dealing with their ruined marriages.
A story can never be one sided
The story will have as many sides as the number of people involved. Also, there is no absolute truth, and even if a fundamental truth exists, the humans are incapable of its knowledge, and we just have the various versions of the truth, our perceptions. Our perceptions are framed according to our incomplete awareness of the situation and according to our mindset. The wife’s story would be different than the husband, and then there would be stories from both sides of the family and friends. There would the mistress’s story. Maybe after knowing all their accounts you may have doubts regarding the wife as well. Maybe there wasn’t even an affair. Maybe the husband was blackmailed. There can be an endless list of maybes. But can’t we even give the husband a chance to justify his actions?
All the F.R.I.E.N.D.S fanatics would understand when I say, there are two kinds of people- the ones who believe Ross cheated on Rachel and ones who believe ‘they were on a break’. Again, two versions of the same story.
Everybody has their own story. It is always easy for us to judge, ridicule someone, but it takes patience and an open heart to understand someone’s real intentions behind their behavior and actions. There’s a reason why they’re the way they are.
Understanding the same issue through different perspectives can actually help resolve the conflict. We live in a world of assumptions. We live under the impression that people around us will understand us, rather than actually communicating with them. Complications in communication create misunderstandings and hide the necessary aspects of the actual truth.
Things are not simply black and white. They are multicolored; sometimes even shades of the same color. Similarly, there are many sides to a story, many ‘truths’, many versions. Study both sides of everything, no matter how uncomfortable the other side is.
About Carson Derrow
