Be kind, because everyone you meet is going through a struggle
What Are You Going Through“Be kind, because everyone you meet is going through a struggle” is the narrator’s distilled response to hearing people pray in the documentary Jesus, You Know. The saying turns the film’s unanswered questions about prayer and God into an earthly ethic: whether or not anyone is listening above, people can listen to one another’s suffering.
Meaning and Context
The narrator reaches for the expression after watching prayers that disclose loneliness, self-doubt, and sadness. The supplicants differ in age and background, yet their words seem to ask for love they have never found or fear losing. The saying gives that shared vulnerability a plain, portable form: kindness begins by recognizing that another person may be carrying an unseen struggle.
Attribution and Uncertainty
The memoir identifies the phrase as a popular inspirational command and notes that it is often attributed to Plato. It does not establish who first said it. The attribution therefore remains part of the saying’s circulation rather than a verified account of its origin.
Role in the Narrative
The expression follows the narrator’s questions about what prayer is and whether God is listening. It shifts attention from the possibility of divine response to the human witness in the theater, where the prayers make suffering audible. The narrator had noticed that not everyone in the audience stayed to the end; her recollection of the saying offers a counterpoint to leaving, asking instead for attention to the struggles people reveal.
A later radio interview gives the sentiment an irreverent companion. Asked for movie recommendations, John Waters calls Jesus, You Know his favorite holiday movie and jokes that a Supreme Being required to hear everyone’s prayers would go out of his mind. Against that comic image of prayer as an exhausting burden, the expression suggests a human-scale response: not solving every sorrow, but meeting other people with kindness.
