The word Sonder was coined by John Koenig in 2012 as part of his project, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which aims to define neologisms for emotions that do not have descriptive terms. Sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Everyone is going through a situation that you know nothing about. An illness, a battle, a struggle, a worry, a cause, a tribulation, and it can be tough to navigate the vicissitudes of life. A smile, a kind gesture, or a random act of kindness would go a long way to spark a difference in someone else’s life. You can never tell what people are going through and the lens they are looking at a situation. As the British academic and author John G. Bennett once remarked, “We tend to see ourselves primarily in the light of our intentions, which are invisible to others, while we see others mainly in the light of their actions, which are all that’s visible to us, we have a situation in which misunderstanding and injustice are the order of the day.” We judge others by their actions and ourselves based on our intentions.

Most people use two totally different sets of criteria for judging themselves versus others. We tend to judge others according to their actions. It’s very cut-and-dried. However, we judge ourselves by our intentions. Even if we do the wrong thing, if we believe our motives were good, we let ourselves off the hook. And we are often willing to do that over and over before requiring ourselves to change. – John C. Maxwell

In his classic book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey recalls an experience on a New York subway that changed his outlook and describes the concept of Sonder in depth. He writes:

I remember a mini-paradigm shift I experienced one Sunday morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly—some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed. The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people’s papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.

It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?” The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.

“Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man’s pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. “Your wife just died? Oh, I’m so sorry! Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?” Everything changed in an instant.”

“Judge tenderly, if you must. There is usually a side you have not heard, a story you know nothing about, and a battle waged that you are not having to fight.” ― Traci Lea LaRussa

24-year-old blind boy

A 24 year old boy seeing out from the train’s window shouted… “Dad, look the trees are going behind!” Dad smiled and a young couple sitting nearby, looked at the 24 year old’s childish behavior with pity, suddenly he again exclaimed… “Dad, look the clouds are running with us!”

The couple couldn’t resist and said to the old man…“Why don’t you take your son to a good doctor?”The old man smiled and said…“I did and we are just coming from the hospital, my son was blind from birth, he just got his eyes today.

Every single person on the planet has a story. Don’t judge people before you truly know them. The truth might surprise you.

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