Walk Your Own Mile

The ever-eloquent Mr. Emerson observes that "All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view."

That's an interesting contrarian perspective, completely opposed to the more familiar idea about walking a mile in the other guy's shoes. I guess there are so many other guys out there, though, that you could easily spend your life sympathetically walking endless weary miles, when not one of those miles was really yours to walk.