"Don't judge people for the choices they made when you don't know the options they had to choose from."

It’s easy to pass judgment from a distance, to form opinions based on glimpses of someone’s life we don’t fully understand. But every choice someone makes is shaped by battles we haven’t fought, fears we haven’t felt, and roads we’ve never walked. Behind every decision is a story—a moment of pain, desperation, hope, or quiet courage.

So before you question someone’s path, pause and remember: not everyone had the luxury of better options. Some choices are made in survival mode, in the dark, with trembling hands and a heart just trying to keep beating. What may look like a mistake to you might have been their only way forward. What seems wrong from the outside might have been the most merciful thing they could do for themselves at the time.

Compassion asks us to hold space for complexity. To choose empathy over assumption. To recognize that human beings are layered, and life doesn’t always give us clear or easy answers. We all carry scars—some visible, some hidden—and we’re all just trying to make it through in the best way we know how.

So offer grace. Choose softness. Let your heart be a place where understanding is more important than judgment.