Yesterday I was chatting with several people and something came up that has been brought to my attention many times in my life. The way people judge others. We see someone on the bus or wallking down the street the first reaction is to look at the person's clothes and what they are doing. Then most of us make a judgement. If the person is talking to themselves, dancing, or doing anything that we consider weird we make a judgement. We are all guilty. Some of us though catch ourselves and realize what we are doing and others go with it as if it is a fact.
The problem with this is we don't know their story. We don't know why they are doing what they are or who they are. Automatically we see someone acting in a manner we think is strange and we label them crazy or weird. It has happened to me for many reasons. Due to my sense of humor, my loving to dance when I hear music, how I dress, my smiling at what is in my head, or even how I view a situation. Once upon a time it bothered me how people would judge me. Then one day I realized it doesn't matter. No matter what I do. No matter what I wear. There will always be a person who will find something wrong with you. It doesn't matter. Some people just want to find something wrong with people. I can come up with reasons and theories, but does it matter. In the end they always will.
For the last few years I have been ridding the same bus around the same time. Periodically a man who is about my age, maybe a little older, gets on the same bus. He has a tendancy of hitting his head against the rails for people to hold on to and he has a tendancy of yelling out. Most people stare at him and talk about him. Once someone said he was just looking for attention and was just faking it. There reasoning was "I use to work with people like that. I can tell." Really how does that person know from just seeing him for a few minutes? Other times I hear people say "What is wrong with him?" "He is weird and scarey". Each time I hear people say these things it makes me feel for this person. It doesn't matter what is wrong with him. My opinion is he has some sort of problem that makes him act like that. I don't think it is in his control. I have watched him off and on for several years. I don't stare at him or talk about him. I observe him like I do everyone I see. I have perfected watching people without having to look at them. For some reason though this guy as the years have passed has a tendancy of sitting near me. He use to just stand there or find a place away from people if he did sit. In the last year or two he has started sitting next to me. When this started occuring I started having people make the comments of "I think he was trying to get your attention". I didn't have an opinion either way about that. All I said was "I have seen him for the last several years and he always acts like that. I think he has some medical problem." Then I leave it at that and the people just go quiet. Since talking to a friend of mine recently who has medical problems that causes her to have similar actions. Talking her about how people look at her or treat her due to her medical problems made me think about this guy and made me realize. Maybe the reason he sits next to me is that I don't look at him the way other people do and I don't make comments about him. I just go about doing whatever I was doing before he got on the bus. My friend I have is a great person. She has a kind heart and is wonderful. She doesn't let what other people say about her medical problem or how they treat her prevent her from being a wonderful person or let it stop her from being her. That is a wonderful thing and it is an inspiration to me. She is a strong woman and I am very proud of how she is dealing with all of it.
Another friend of mine and I were talking about fear. There have been many times I have discussed with people what they fear. Many people are afraid to admit their fears to people. I admit I am also afraid to admit my fears. We all have them. We all do things that make no sense due to fears we have. We scream when we see bugs that we think are icky even if they won't hurt us. Some of us take stairs instead of elevators. Some of us sleep with lights on when we are alone for fear of someone breaking in or something being in the dark that we can't see. There are fears we have due to dreams or experiences we have had. Others of us develope fears due to something we read or watched on T.V. Then some of us just develope fears for reasons we have no idea about how we got them. I know people who are afraid of germs and others of us feel panic due to illogical things. Yet we are afraid to tell these things to people. Most of the time it is, because we are afraid of what others will think or say. Then some of us are afraid to tell people for fear that they will use it against us in some way. The point is this everyone is afraid of being judged. Maybe we get past that at some point. Maybe we don't. Maybe we learn how to deal with that fear or we just withdraw to prevent knowing about that judgement. None of us can prevent people from judgeing us. We can though find a way to deal with it. We can teach ourselves and our children not to judge. That isn't to say to trust everyone. If there is a legit reason or you get a bad feeling then it is best to pay attention to that.
The point is many of us miss out or almost miss out on getting to know people due to judging them in a moment. Several of my best friends almost didn't get to know me due to their original judgement of me. Many times people judge me inaccurately. I don't even want to know what people think about me. Seriously the things I have heard just horrifies me that anyone thinks that way about me. The biggest problem is I hear many different ideas of how people perceive me. So I can't even pin down what makes the ones who have outragously horriblely wrong impressions of me get those impressions. Honestly I think it is a matter of how people look at things and there is nothing you or me can do about it. So why should we care what they think? My suggestion is live your life. Enjoy your life. Be the best person you can be in all the situations you find and don't let them bring you down. There are to many people who like to tear down the good people. They want us to become bitter, because they are. Lets show them we are proud of who we are despite them. Be who you are and if they don't like it well remember that is their problem not yours. You are beautiful and wonderful. We all are and we should be happy and celebrate it.
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