Is yours the only path?

“We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It's one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it's another to think that yours is the only path.” -Paulo Coelho

Lately I have come to discover more truths about living and letting others live. I have found out that it takes for someone to commit more and more mistakes to make him become less in words, more in listening. Slow to anger, quick to compassion. It requires for someone to get hurt, really really hurt, to be able to slow down and listen to what life has to say about living. Yes, indeed, we learn the hard way. For some, it only takes to fall and get bruised once to learn the lesson. For others, it takes them a lot of times to fall and get hurt for them to finally learn the lesson. Yet again for others, it takes them their entire lifetime to keep trying to learn the lesson. I cannot know yet which category I fall. But I do accept the fact already, with unfeigned humility, that indeed, I cannot avoid pain all my life. Right now, as much as I grimace even at the thought of it, I am embracing the fact, that it will help me become slow to judging others and quicker to compassion. The world needs more and more of it these days.