What are They Carrying?
There's something grotesque about the way we expect other people to be convenient for us. We want people to be emotionally available, yet low maintenance — like a houseplant that texts back promptly and never makes things weird. What we’re really after is connection without complication — the sanitised version, the one that doesn't require us to bump into the messy subplot of someone else's emotional arc.
I was in line at an organic grocery store in Ubud. A woman was paying at the only register, casually asking the cashier a couple of questions about those impulse items near the counter — stuff designed to seduce you while your card is already in hand.
In front of me, a guy in yoga wear exhaled hard, then cut her off with a sharp “Are you buying or not?”.
My first instinct was to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to wedge his vegan sliders somewhere his breathwork wouldn’t reach. But I figured he was probably late to a meditation class and spiritually unravelling under the weight of a 45-second delay.
What was actually happening, though, wasn’t a crisis of efficiency — it was a crisis of expectation. This guy wasn’t impatient — he was offended. Offended that other people weren’t moving at his preferred tempo.
And I saw myself in that. Not in the outburst, maybe, but in the posture: the rigid belief that others should cooperate with an internal script I’d never shared.
We do this constantly. Someone cuts us off in traffic, and we construct elaborate narratives of their moral failings. A friend cancels plans, and suddenly it’s a question of respect, of consideration — of everything except the possibility that they might be drowning in something we can't see.
Here's what I've been sitting with: What if the problem isn't other people's inconsiderateness, but our own inability to tolerate the fundamental messiness of being human around other humans?
Think about it. Every person you encounter is mid-chapter in a story you haven’t read. You’ve dropped in on page 137 of a private novel — right in the middle of a plot twist they didn’t choose, shaped by episodes you’ll never get to read.
And yet we take their moment of incoherence personally, as if their unfinished narrative is a threat to the neatness of ours. As if they exist primarily to validate our sense of order.
This isn't some call to play nice. And it’s not permission to excuse harm or let everything slide. It’s choosing a frame that doesn’t turn every interaction into a drama where someone always has to be wrong.
So what do you do instead? You assume good intent as a practice of psychological flexibility. Not because people always deserve it, but because the alternative — that constant scanning for slights, that hair-trigger offense-taking — is its own kind of poison.
When someone snaps at you, what if your first thought wasn't "What's wrong with them?" but "I wonder what they're struggling with?"
When a friend withdraws suddenly, what if instead of cataloging their failures of friendship, you considered that they might be barely holding themselves together?
It’s not virtue. It’s perspective — recognising that the story we tell ourselves about other people's motivations becomes the reality we live in. Choose the story where people are fundamentally trying their best with whatever resources they have available, and you get to live in a world where connection is possible even when it's complicated.
I'm not suggesting we become naive optimists, pretending that cruelty doesn't exist or that boundaries aren't necessary. Some people are genuinely toxic, and sometimes the most compassionate thing you can do is remove yourself from their orbit. But most of the daily friction we experience isn't malicious — it's just human beings being imperfect while trying to get through their days.
The thing about assuming good intent is that it creates space for actual resolution. When you approach someone's difficult behavior as information rather than attack, you can respond from curiosity instead of defensiveness. You can ask questions instead of building cases. You can offer understanding instead of demanding explanations.
When you stop needing other people to be different than they are, they often become easier to be around. Not because they change, necessarily, but because you stop bracing against them. The relationship moves toward connection — not control.
This requires a particular kind of courage — the willingness to remain soft in a world that often rewards hardness. To stay open when closing off would feel safer. To choose interpretation that allows for complexity rather than the simple clarity of righteousness.
So next time someone disappoints you, try this: instead of asking "Why are they like this?" ask "What are they carrying that I can't see?"