This is a passage from a Stephen Covey book:
"I remember a mini-Paradigm Shift I experienced one
Sunday morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly -- some
reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed.
It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered
the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the
whole climate changed. "The man sat
down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The
children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people's
papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did
nothing. "It was difficult not to
feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive to let his
children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility
at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated,
too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned
to him and said, "Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of
people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more." "The man lifted his gaze as if to come
to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, 'Oh,
you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the
hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think,
and I guess they don't know how to handle it either.' "Can you imagine what I felt at that
moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently; I felt
differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn't have to
worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with
the man's pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. "Your
wife just died? Oh, I'm so sorry. Can you tell me about it? What can I do to
help?" Everything changed in an instant."
