Be careful rushing to judgment. You might just trip on your own stubbornness, hurt, whatever and fall flat on your face. I've done it. Here's a story:

I hadn't heard from a friend of mine in a while. I called, I e-mailed, nothing. It's like he dropped off the face of the earth.

So instead of thinking something was wrong, I figured he just stopped talking to me. I sent him a curt and snippy e-mail saying something like "Okay, you know I'm trying to get in touch with you. You're not responding. Fine. Call me when you're ready, if ever."

And I didn't hear from him for weeks.

I went through all these different scenarios of what I could have done to get him to stop talking to me. Did I say something stupid? Did we have a snip fest that I can't remember? Or was it his fault - ah, that was it. It was HIS fault. Right!

Um, well, imagine how stupid I felt when I got an e-mail saying that he had a herniated disk and that he had to have surgery. So he wasn't blowing me off, he was just injured and recovering.

I felt like a complete heel. Actually, more than that but this is a family friendly article.

When I finally talked to him, it turns out that he just didn't tell me because he didn't want to worry or burden me. Of course, that's crazy, I said, I worried nonetheless! Though, how could he know that? I zapped him in cyberspace.

So after we had a good laugh at how we both didn't communicate well, I wondered about things that I rushed to judgment about and how I probably lost out on things because I didn't have an open mind. It made me realize, after I almost lost my friend, that I have to have an open mind if someone isn't returning calls or someone is snippy.

There are always things behind the scenes that I may or may not know about. Keeping an open mind will help me keep some peace and kindness around the situation.

I find it hard to ride the ebb and flow of life. Because someone doesn't e-mail or call doesn't mean that they are out of my life forever. It means they could be floating out for a little while and then coming back in. And if someone does float out forever, then that's okay. I'm different for having known them.

Remember - things aren't always what they seem. Keeping an open mind can keep an open heart.

Copyright 2009, Spiritualitygirl