In science class the other day, I asked the students, "Do our experiences and ideas influence how we observe the world around us?" I let them talk amongst themselves. There were all kinds of ideas about this. Some said yes and some said no. The lesson progressed and I let them look at different pictures. What the students saw in these photos varied. I asked the question again and all the students agreed that, yes, our experiences an ideas do influence the way we observe the world around us.
This got me thinking about how we perceive ourselves and others. It's easy to judge people based on our perceptions... our experiences and our ideas. We see others the way we want to see them. If we think they are going to be a bad person, then, suddenly, they become one. If we think someone will break our heart, we hold ourselves back. If we think someone doesn't deserve our trust, we'll never give them the chance to prove otherwise.
There is nothing we can do to change this. It is human nature to create opinions about people. We may not know a lick about someone but the second we lay our eyes on them, we are formulating an opinion. There is something we can do though. We can choose to put those opinions to rest. Give people the chance they deserve. YES, we may end up getting hurt. Our initial opinions may be correct. But, isn't it better to be glad you did then to wish you had? Isn't it better to prove your initial opinion wrong and make a friend, then to lose out on something that could be great?
Maybe I'm naive. People are generally good. I truly believe that. It's usually their own perceptions that are getting in the way of the way they are living. We all make mistakes. Our minds don't initially see them as a potential mistake because of the way we are perceiving the situation.
This is why second and third and fourth... and so on, chances are important.
I feel like I'm going a little all over the place with my thoughts right now.
Basically, I'm trying to say, that judging people on our experiences and ideas isn't fair. We need to give people a chance. Sometimes, we need to give them more than one chance because their own experiences are not the same as ours and they do things that we don't agree with. We need understanding.
