A short first-person narrative by Vishen Lakhiani reflecting on the fundamental attribution error and the importance of compassion. He recounts encountering a woman in San Francisco who dropped an Oreo wrapper; he judged and confronted her, only to learn she was distraught after a breakup, which led him to recognize his automatic harsh judgment and to advocate for responding with empathy rather than condemnation.
Chapters
What happens when we judge others? There's a natural thing in our mind called the fundamental attribution error. So when we make a mistake, we attribute it to circumstance. But when somebody else makes a mistake, we attribute it to character. Compassion, practices. Tune down, Fae. So let me tell you something that happened to me that I'm not proud of. I was living in San Francisco, and I'm walking down the street, and there's this lady in front of me, and she's eating a freaking Oreo. And as she puts the Oreo in her mouth, she drops the Oreo wrapper on the ground. So I'm like, how dare she does this? What a horrible human being. My fundamental attribute goes up straight to judgment. I'm thinking, she's horrible. She's a litterbug. So I walk up, I grab that Oreo. I go to a bin. I make sure I'm walking faster. So I overtake her, and I drop it in the bin and turn around and kind of give her a judgy look. And she looks at me. She stops dead in a trap. And then she starts crying. And I'm like, why are you crying? I'm just picking up your trash. And she goes, why do you have to be so mean? And I'm. I'm not trying to be mean. Why do you have to litter? And she goes, listen, I'm so sorry I littered. I found out this morning that my boyfriend dumped me. Oh, man. And all I wanted to do was ease that pain with this Oreo. And my mind was on so many different things, I didn't realize I dropped the wrapper. Why do you have to be such a jerk to me at this moment? And I felt she was right. I was a jerk. I labeled her a litterbug without understanding what was really happening in her soul. She wasn't a litterbug. She was a sweet woman who went through a hard time and made a mistake, and I felt bad. That's fundamental attribution. All of us do that. We all do that. Now when you are seeing the world through the lens of compassion and emanating that compassion. If the rapper dropped, you might pick it up. Still, you might drop it. But you don't feel like you need to prove the other person wrong. And you wouldn't judge the other person. You know that in human life, all of us go through moments of weakness, go through moments of pain. And your default thinking might more likely be, I wonder if she's okay.
