This is something that has come up a few times over the last few months and I felt compelled to discuss...with myself-in the car-while stuck in traffic (yea, I am that person).
Tom has gripped in the past about the judgements I have made about people after only meeting them for the first time. Almost always, they are positive. We have discussed and argued this "habit" of mine. This is usually what it looks like: I think he is too negatively judgemental (and he feels that he can always be proven wrong) and he thinks I set myself up for disappointment (which I don't know that I have ever been that disappointed).
I have met, dealt with and lived with A LOT of seriously negative people. People who don't see the good in others, who only focus on peoples faults, who judge others by the way they look/dress, who constantly have only negative things to say...about everything. YUCK. I find this SO ridiculously draining.
I had a conversation with a co-worker a while ago that has stuck with me. She and I were talking about something personal to which she replied something like this: we never truly know what other people are dealing with, and that it would be unfair of me to judge others based on my first impressions.
Simple. AND I think its true.
I have bad days. Sometimes I am dressed like a bum and don't wash my hair. Sometimes I say the wrong thing to people I have just met or get/feel awkward. Sometimes I can be withdrawn and reticent.
If all the people I know and love judged me on those days I would have no friends. Period.
And the fact is, most people have NO IDEA what goes on for others. None. My WORST day could be a pretty decent day for someone else. Who am I to judge "how good people have it" or say "I feel so bad for them"??? How do I know what's really going on? Who am I to say that a person is an ass/dbag/tool (insert negative assumption here) when I have no idea who or what this person is about the I meet them?
*Sometimes I get into these rants about how some people I know complain about their lives and I just.cant.fathom.why?!? But it's all relative. The things I have been through and dealt with are WAY different than what others have been through and dealt with. We all experience pain and hardship differently. But I am pretty sure we have all FELT pain and THAT is something I can empathize with.*
ANYWAY, back to my point. Yes. I like to positively judge most people when I first meet them. Why not? What do I have to lose? It's not like I am putting my faith in this new person, or promising my first born child. OF COURSE people that I have initially thought were cool turned out to be not so cool (and I am reminded of these miss-judgements by several people, which by the way is annoying) but really they have not been disappointments, its just a change of opinion.
What I have found disappointing is when I have invested my time in a relationship and have put my beliefs and faith into that said relationship and it is not given the same respect in return. That has ALWAYS been more disappointing than any of the "wrong" first assumptions I have made about others.
Why is it so hard for people to see something good in others...even if you have only known them for a few moments? I know I would rather be "judged" positively upon first impression than have to change a persons mind...and frankly I probably wouldn't want to be friends with a person who initially judged me negatively.
I am human, so there are people who I don't view so positively, but usually for good reasons and after I get to know more about them.
Like Anne Frank said:"I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart"
Like I said I make negative assumptions about people from time to time...for example when I cuss out old ladies when they cut me off in traffic...but maybe their partner just had a massive heart attack and they are racing to get to the hospital to be by their side...
xo
Well said!
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