Age teaches you that ordinary people can carry extraordinary histories quietly.

The person at the next desk, the neighbor, the woman at the till: any of them may have survived things that would reorganize your understanding of them entirely. Almost nobody advertises it. Composure is not evidence of an easy life, and the assumption that you are the one carrying something heavy while everyone else moves lightly is simply what it feels like from inside a life.

Let this make you a little slower to judge and a little more willing to ask. Ordinary questions asked with real attention often open extraordinary answers. And if you are carrying something invisible yourself, remember that you are surrounded by people doing the same.