When I was a kid, my mom used to rage about people who had weeds growing in their gardens. Those weeds go to seed and those seeds get blown around the neighborhood, leaving my mom’s pristine garden a hapless victim.

Weeds in her garden were the result of inconsiderate, stupid, ignorant weed people who simply didn’t care about anyone but themselves. What’s wrong with people these days? (Apparently, all of those folks who think it is the current generation didn’t know about my mom’s weed problem).

It never occurred to her that maybe her neighbors had different interests. Or maybe they had a different vision of what a good garden might look like. Or maybe they perceived her as eccentric and silly, especially when she started calling the police to report the worst offenders. Who knows? My mom was a master gardener. She knew the facts, and their weeds were a problem, even if the offending parties weren’t much interested in learning about it.

I heard about weeds my whole childhood, as did the neighbors.

My mom was right about weeds but she was wrong about people. The weed people were not bad, malicious, or thoughtless; they were simply operating with a different set of priorities. Her efforts to bludgeon the neighbors into submission through education were not being ignored because they were unable to learn; they were being ignored because they didn’t share her priorities. Her mistake was assuming that once they were educated then they would gladly give up their own interests to ensure that her garden and their neighborhood remained weed free. And when that didn’t happen, she became increasingly frustrated and angry.

When we have a passion, in particular one which is not shared by most of society, we struggle with perspective. We forget that we’re the weird ones; the people with special requirements which are outside the societal norm. We are the problem.

It really doesn’t matter if you’re right. My mom was right. But being right did nothing to solve her problem because her point of view was not the normative one and she was unable to communicate in a way that might have helped other people understand what she needed from them.

“Dog people” seem to struggle with this as well. If you are reading this blog then your beliefs about dogs almost certainly do not fit what is typical. You may have all kinds of knowledge about dogs and how things should be and you may be right! But understanding that you are outside the societal norm might be helpful the next time you try to bludgeon a person into acquiescence when they do something that isn’t to your particular liking.