When someone asked me, “What makes you think your story is 100% correct?”

I couldn’t help but smile. I never said my story was absolute—only that it belongs to me. My truth may not be universal, but it is honest, seen through my eyes, lived through my experience. That, I think, is all any of us can truly claim.

When they challenged me again—“What makes you believe you’re the center of the universe?”—I wondered why believing in my own perspective must automatically mean self-centeredness.

Why must confidence in one’s viewpoint be mistaken for arrogance?
Perhaps it’s because so many people confuse conviction with control.

I began to imagine our perspectives as boxes—each one containing the stories, beliefs, and experiences that shape us.

Inside our boxes, we make sense of the world. We decorate them with symbols of meaning, fill them with the echoes of those who understand us. Some boxes are quiet sanctuaries; others are crowded with noise. Yet all of them, in their own way, hold truths that matter.

In this landscape of boxes, we spend our lives searching for those whose walls feel familiar—our tribes, the ones who share our sense of light and rhythm. But there are always those other boxes, ones painted with warnings and judgment, shouting that their way is the only way. Their lids rattle with fury at difference. Their corners bristle with fear.

And I’ll admit it—sometimes I want to slam those box tops shut, if only to find a moment of silence. But if I did, I’d be closing the same door I wish others would open. Maybe the better path lies not in silencing one another, but in learning how to let our boxes coexist—to listen without losing ourselves, to speak without shouting, and to remember that none of us holds the universe alone.