THE SECOND AGREEMENT

Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

The Four Agreements

~ Don Miguel Ruiz

Many people have told me that of my father’s Four Agreements, the second one, “Don’t take anything personally,” is the most difficult to practice.

One way to think about this is to understand that all people - me, you and everyone else - uniquely perceive the world through our own senses, and, by definition, we can’t possibly be having the same experience as someone else. We may dress similarly, we may speak the same language, but every single one of us has a different perception, and no two perspectives will ever be exactly the same.

Only in your imagination can you see the world through the eyes of another.

Practice

With awareness, realize it’s impossible for anyone else to ever think or feel exactly the same way that you do, because to think and feel is by definition an individual experience. Consequently, you couldn’t possibly know another individual’s experience, because you are not that individual. Remembering this allows you to better practice not taking things personally, which allows us to be compassionate.

Living a Life of Awareness

~ Don Miguel Ruiz Jr.