Happiness Health and Beauty Secrets

My mother’s name was Honey.

That’s what my father called her. Warm, familiar, safe. That word meant love in our house.

But I’ve learned that for some people, that exact same word — Honey — was what the scary boyfriend said right before things got bad. Or what the condescending boss used to remind you exactly where you stood. Same word. Completely different universe of meaning.

That’s the thing nobody talks about when we wonder why the world feels so antagonistic right now. We’re all speaking English — or whatever language — and we think we’re having the same conversation. We’re not. We never were.

Walking a mile in someone’s shoes is a nice idea but it doesn’t quite capture it for me. What I think we actually need to do is put the other person’s glasses on. Because it’s not just about where they’ve walked — it’s about what they see when they get there.

Take unions. I’m not making a political statement here — I promise — just pointing to how differently two people can see the exact same thing. I knew a man whose brother worked in a union shop. Double time, triple time, every hour after thirty three hours. Meanwhile he was in a non-union workplace, routinely treated poorly, compensated poorly. Same family. Same blood. Completely different lived reality. Of course they saw unions differently. How could they not?

Then there was a woman in our office — sharp, accomplished — who was ashamed that her father was a printing press man at the Daily News. And I get it, I do, but here’s the other side of that story. That man sat home on a Sunday earning triple time. Not because he was lazy. Because his union contract said the company’s brand new ten million dollar printing press could be operated by two people — but they had to pay for three. He didn’t even have to show up.

Is that right? Is that wrong? I genuinely don’t know. What I know is that her shame and his satisfaction were both completely logical given the glasses each of them was wearing.

I remember when computer typesetting came in — yes, I’m dating myself — and the union said you can use it, but everyone made redundant by it still gets paid. Progress held hostage or workers protected? Depends entirely on whose father you are.

And then there’s the immigration conversation. I used to go door to door and I’d meet people who could barely speak English yet were the most passionately outraged people I’d ever encountered on the subject of illegal immigration. Why? Because they’d spent years — sometimes decades — and a fortune, doing it the legal way. Standing in line. Following every rule. Of course they saw it differently than someone who’d never been through that process. Of course.

Not a political statement. Just context. Just lenses.

Here’s where it gets personal for me though.

I washed my face with deodorant soap my whole life. In the shower. Same bar I used everywhere else. Didn’t think twice about it.

The people I serve have happily spent hundreds — sometimes thousands — on anything that genuinely promises to help their skin. That’s not vanity. That’s their value system. Their lens.

And for years, without fully realizing it, I was looking through MY lens when I advised them. Recommending something less expensive because in my world, less expensive is always smarter. Steering people toward the conservative option because I’m a man who couldn’t care less about wrinkles — honestly, I think they make me look rugged — and I wouldn’t dream of spending thousands on beauty treatments.

But here’s what I missed. Some of those people had already made up their minds. They weren’t asking me whether to invest in themselves. They were simply trying to make an appointment. And I was creating the greatest disservice by underselling what we actually do — which, by the way, is masterful enough that people fly in from around the world for it. That’s not a boast. That’s context I was withholding because of my own lens.

And the friends. Oh, the friends.

The ones I was trying to protect financially. The ones I’d casually wave off with “you don’t need to spend that much.” You know what happened? Some of them went and found treatments on their own. And a few of them emailed me afterward — “what do you think of this?” — describing procedures that could have seriously scarred them.

I put them at risk. By looking through my lens. By deciding for them what they should value and what they should spend.

Shame on me.

So here’s the question I’m sitting with — and maybe you should sit with it too, whether you’re in law, accounting, medicine, finance, whatever it is you do:

Whose glasses are you looking through when you advise the people who trust you?

Before you answer — and before you disagree with anyone about anything today — try this. Just ask them why they feel the way they do. Then stop talking. Actually stop. You might be about to uncover something deeply personal. Something that makes complete sense once you understand where it came from.

Everyone has the right to feel the way they feel.

The biggest mistake we can make is selfishly seeing everything only through our own eyes. Even when — especially when — we think we’re trying to help.

And before I let you go — can we talk about politics for just one second?

Is it really any surprise that political issues generate the kind of passion that tears families apart at Thanksgiving dinner? Whether it’s a woman’s right to choose, economic policy, crime and safety, education, immigration — these aren’t abstract issues to most people. They are deeply, viscerally, personally lived experiences.

They call them “hot button” issues for a reason.

Because somebody figured out exactly which buttons to push. And those buttons weren’t installed by a political party. They were installed by life. By your father’s paycheck. By your neighborhood. By what happened to someone you loved. By the line you stood in for years to get here legally. By the doctor who did or didn’t show up. By the choice that was or wasn’t available to you.

Press the right button and it doesn’t feel like politics anymore. It feels like survival. Like identity. Like everything.

So maybe — just maybe — before we decide someone is stupid or evil or brainwashed for seeing it differently, we could get curious instead of combative. Ask instead of argue. Listen instead of reload.

And if all else fails…

Remember — brother or sister, ask questions first, understand second, and you just might deepen a friendship and earn real respect rather than alienate the very people you care about most.

And one more thing…

Remember Honey.

…How did that make you feel?

Because if that last line didn’t make you smile at the irony — you might want to go back and read this again from the beginning.