How the Royals Helped Me Find Compassion

And other self-reflections from the Harry & Meghan Docuseries

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

I wasn’t going to watch it. In fact, I was actively avoiding it. I hadn’t watched the Oprah interview and wasn’t interested in watching Harry & Meghan play the victim card for six additional episodes.

But I did — and I’m glad. As ridiculous as it sounds, watching those episodes helped me discover some hard truths about myself and forced me to do some much-needed self-reflection.

Here’s what I learned: I’m judgmental.

“No kidding,” you may be thinking. “All humans are judgmental.” And sure, we may all have our biases — that’s just part of life. But until recently, I always thought I was less judgmental than others. I thought I was open-minded, forgiving, and more accepting of diverse viewpoints than the average person.

After watching Harry & Meghan, however, I realized I wasn’t nearly as rational as I’d previously thought.

I’ll tell you how I came to realize that (and how I’ve changed since), but first, let’s take a short journey through my history with the Royal family:

July 29, 1981. I’m 10 years old. My family is on vacation in northern Wisconsin. Much to my dismay, my mom and aunt woke us up to watch 20-year-old Princess Diana wed Prince Charles on a grainy…