Maybe his back hurts

I love Morgan Housel’s writing. I was thinking about a story he shared in a post earlier in the year. It’s a great post, one I thought I’d share in full. I broke my back skiing when I was a teenager. It’s still screwed up and I occasionally tweak it, leaving me in agony for a few days. When I’m in pain I’ve noticed: I’m irritable, short-tempered, and impatient. I try hard to not be, but pain can override the best intentions. One lesson I’ve tried to learn is that whenever I see someone being a jerk, my knee-jerk reaction is to think, “What an asshole.” My second reaction is: maybe his back hurts. It’s not an excuse, but a reminder that all behavior makes sense with enough information. You can always see people’s actions, but rarely (if ever) what’s happening in their head. Here’s a related point: Most harm done to others is unintentional. I think the vast majority of people are good and well-meaning, but in a competitive and stressful world it’s easy to ignore how your actions affect…