Wednesday, April 22, 2009

First impressions

My first impression is always wrong. There have been so many instances when I've judged a person just by looking at them. It can be something as ridiculous as their skin color, to their mastery over english, to their expressions. something so trivial can totally bias my opinion towards a person. without even being formally introduced to that person.

Susan's story is going all around, who got laughed at for looking funny. But once she opened her mouth to sing, everybody became a fan. Someone had rightly pointed out in a comment on this story that if she sung bad, were people right in ridiculing her?

Why dont we give people a chance? Are we too busy trying to boost our self esteem by convincing ourselves that we have no threat from the person in front of us coz he or she is less than us in this particular way? Money, caste, gender, god knows what all yardsticks we use to make sure that we are always superior.

One smile. One genuine question. That can make all the difference. Somewhere we should accept that people who may seem less than us in one way are most probably way better than us at something else. A seemingly timid woman might be great at shares, seemingly catty girl in gym class might have the friendliest smile ever, you can just never predict these things.

So my advice to myself is, dont judge. No matter how different from you, never judge anybody. It is rewarding to first see positives in someone and then mostly the negatives rarely affect you. Someone rightly said, if you understand people, it is difficult to hate them.