What's under your hood?

What's under the hood?

My car looks good. It seems to drive well and functions well for the most part. I took it to the mechanic for a simple routine "servicing". Well needless to say that 12 days later when I got it back, accompanied by a terrifically steep bill I was surprised to learn of all the things that had to be checked, changed, and replaced. To my naked eye looking at the engine under the hood everything seemed to look just fine. I was wrong.

I have plenty of patients who look like as if they are healthy on the outside without any medical issues. Unfortunately when I take them for an invasive cardiac procedure I discover all sorts of high grade obstructions in their blood vessels. One patient could usually ride close to  100 miles on his bike, and came to see me as he could now only do 75 miles. He looked very fit and healthy on the outer surface. I was thinking "hmm that's 74 miles more than I can do !!" Well a quick blood vessel mapping out revealed pretty much total occlusions of his coronary anatomy, and off to bypass surgery he went. 

On social media I see all the wonderful things that celebrities experience and   do. Ah yes the wealth, the fame, the glory and I get thinking "I am sure that their lives are all just perfect." That thought process would be severely flawed. 

I have no idea what another individual is experiencing so I have no right to judge. I do not know whether someone who just looks happy on the outside, may actually have all sorts of troubles at home, or work or with their families or finances.  What may look stable on the cover may not be the case under the hood. Until I have walked in another person's shoes I really cannot say whether that person has a better life than me or not. Moreover it is not even a case of a better or  worse life since everyone is just in a state of "experiencing." It is the experience itself that I am in fact craving and searching for. When that experience goes well, I believe I have had a "good experience" When it does not, I believe that it was a bad experience and I look outside of myself unto others' experiences for comparison. 

This is human nature. Limited, experiential. Compared and judged, I grow from these experiences.Unlimited, and  non-judgmental and accepting unconditionally is divine nature. There is a fine line that exists between the two natures. Seeing a person and rendering judgement about their lives is a kin to looking at a book and thinking you know its contents. There is so much more on each page and each chapter that is written from beginning to end and everything in between that bears witness to a person's life, yet in the end it is their life and not mine. I can never live in another persons shoes. Why? It is too much. I can barely muster enough time and effort to facilitate my own litany of experiences. I try not to judge others, yet that is where is the fine line gets crossed back and forth. 

What's under your hood? I don't care. I love you for exactly who you are. That's all.