In a culture quick to judge, extending grace is a radical act of empathy — and a reminder that we never see the full story.

It is wild how fast we think we know someone. If someone did not say hi to you when they passed by, all of a sudden, we perceive them as cold-hearted. If someone else is always late to class, they are often seen as lazy. Those that are quiet in class may be perceived as standoffish to others. But, maybe we do not know as much as we think we do, and should learn to give people grace.

University life is a whirlwind of identity formation, existential spirals, awkward hallway nods, caffeine-dependence and the creeping suspicion that we are all just pretending to be more put together than we are. Everyone is in the middle of something — whether it is a personal rebrand, a mental health low, a crushing academic load, a family crisis back home or just a straight-up bad day. For some reason though, we often act like we have backstage passes to other people’s intentions. As if seeing someone’s actions from the front row gives us the full plot, but it never does.

It is not entirely our fault. We live in a culture that is quick to make a judgement. Hot or cold. Good or bad. Problematic or perfect. We do not leave much room for the middle ground. In an age of performative authenticity, we have started believing that people are what they post, what they wear, how they speak in public. People are not that simple though. I certainly am not and neither are you, so why do we expect others to be?

Think about the last time someone misunderstood you. Maybe you flaked on plans because you were too anxious to get out of bed, and someone decided you were selfish. Maybe you got a bad grade, and someone chalked it up to laziness instead of the week-long family emergency you did not share with anyone. Maybe you were having a panic attack in class, and someone thought you were ignoring them. You probably wanted someone —anyone— to extend grace. To say, “I don’t know the full story, but I will not assume the worst.”

Giving grace is not the same as excusing harm, as that is a different conversation. This is not about letting people get away with being cruel, manipulative or consistently disrespectful. This is about those gray areas, the everyday human moments where someone falls short. Not from malice — from exhaustion, from distraction, from being a messy human like the rest of us.

Grace means resisting the urge to build a moral thesis around someone’s worst moment. It means replacing “they are a bad friend” with “maybe they are overwhelmed.” Swapping “he is so rude” with “maybe he is socially anxious.” It means allowing room for context we may never be privy to. That can be uncomfortable because we love certainty. Certainty gives us control and lets us categorize the world. It also flattens people into caricatures, and we end up navigating the world like it is a cartoon, judging everyone on whether they are heroes or villains. That is not how real life works.

Real life is the girl crying on the library stairs after a T.A. ripped apart her paper, the guy who ghosted your group project because his grandmother died last week and the friend who has not texted back because they are silently unraveling and do not know how to say it. Real life is complex and contradictory. Giving grace is the glue that holds the community together in that mess.

Being able to extend grace is a skill that takes practice. It looks like pausing before you talk poorly about someone behind their back. It looks like checking in with a friend before writing them off. It looks like choosing empathy over ego. You will not always be able to properly give grace, but every time you try, you foster a space around you where people can be a little more real, a little less perfect, and a lot safer.

When you give grace, you also give yourself freedom. Freedom from the heavy burden of judgment. Freedom to be curious instead of critical. Freedom to not have to solve every person like a puzzle. You start to realize you do not need to have an opinion on everyone and that you do not have to interpret every silence or misstep. You can just let people be.

When you let people be, they are more likely to let you be. That kind of environment changes everything. It turns classrooms into spaces where people feel okay asking questions they are afraid to get wrong. It transforms group chats from passive-aggressive landmines into places where people can admit they are struggling. It reshapes the unspoken rules about how much vulnerability is allowed.

Next time someone disappoints you in a small, human way—pause. Ask yourself if you are looking at a single scene and assuming it is the whole movie. Ask yourself if you are projecting your own fears or insecurities onto someone else. Ask if maybe there is more to the story. Giving grace does not mean you are naive. It means you are wise enough to know people are more than their worst moments, and that you are kind enough to act like it.

We are all walking around this campus trying to hold it together. We all mess up by saying the wrong thing, forgetting the assignment, cancelling last-minute, crying in the bathroom, posting something cringe or showing up with bad energy. What a gift it would be if we stopped keeping receipts and started keeping room — for growth, for complexity, for the fact that everyone you pass in the hall is living a life you will never fully understand.

Extending grace is not a weakness, but a strength. It is choosing softness in a world that prizes snap judgments and curated perfection.