Circumstances cause us to act the way we do. We should always bear this in mind before judging the actions of others. I realized this from the start during World War II.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Seeing things from a different point of view can help us understand why other people act the way they do. We too often judge people without having all the facts.
Surely we have always acted; it is an instinct inherent in all of us. Some of us are better at it than others, but we all do it.
Human beings do things for a reason, even if sometimes it's the wrong reason.
Anyone can identify with those moments in life where circumstances or people inform us that we've strayed from the path of our better nature and intentions. We know what that's like, and we resist it - so as not to feel like we're bad people.
This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.
The difficulty we have in accepting responsibility for our behavior lies in the desire to avoid the pain of the consequences of that behavior.
It's just human nature to try and figure things out. So, when we're in the midst of a situation, we usually try to reason our way through it.
Circumstances define us; they force us onto one road or another, and then they punish us for it.
As human beings, we aren't as individual as we'd like to believe we are. And I think that's what makes acting possible. Despite the fact that I have not experienced something, I have it in my human capacity to imagine it and to put myself in someone else's shoes, and to take someone else's circumstances personally.
It is an endless and frivolous Pursuit to act by any other Rule than the Care of satisfying our own Minds in what we do.