A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside.
“That laundry is not very clean; she doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”
Her husband looks on, remaining silent. Every time her neighbor hangs her wash to dry, the young woman makes the same comments.
A month later, the woman is surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and says to her husband:
“Look, she’s finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this. ”
The husband replies, “Honey, I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”
And so it is with life… What we see when watching others depends on the clarity of the window through which we look. Criticizing is easy, but it seldom yields any positive results. In words of Mahatma Gandhi “be the change you want to see in world”. It would be better if we keep our windows clean, fill ourselves with some amount to gratitude towards life, and compassion for others. Whenever there are criticizing thoughts in our mind about other’s behaviors or acts, we should check our windows first!
I just love Paulo Coelho's writings, they are so simply brilliant. I fell in love with his writing style ever since I read The Alchemist and The Zahir.