Assumptions

I didn't have time to post this week, so instead i got a near and dear friend to guest post! Enjoy Shabbat Shalom!

Don’t see people the way you want to, see them for who they genuinely are.

What does that mean? I’ll try to explain. Sometimes the world has preconceived notions about people that lead to certain expectations, positive or negative ones, therefore they don’t see the person for who they truly are. Here’s a story to better explain. I have a coworker, and many people that she deals with have made assumptions about her and thus creating a negative image of her. I realized a long time ago that the expectations the world has of a person tends to get into that persons head and leads to the fulfillment of those expectations. 

In any case, she’s seen as a drama queen who is all into making big deals about everything, has issues with boundaries and is all over the place. (I’m not really focusing on how the person who’s being judged should react and deal with it) But very often people will say things to her in a joking way how she’s so dramatic and makes a bigger deal then she needs to and mind you she gets a lot of attention for all the “action” she brings to the table. She’s fun to be around and people assume that there’s always something stirring on her plate. Sadly to say I myself started to think, “why can’t she get herself together or why does she need so much attention?” and something today made me realize that I have it all wrong. 

(and here’s the story within the story) there’s a guy who works in my office who from the outside looks like a regular Flatbush guy. Some people are so intimidated by him, he looks like he’s into all the right things that classify him as an A+ Flatbush Guy. But there’s a lot about him that people from the outside don’t know. He is a guy who has such an upstanding guy, he would do anything he could to help someone in need and he is so careful in business not to take away from other Jews. Now that last point is something I think is really commendable. Here he is he works really hard and people have come to him and tried to give him business. If he hears that this piece of business is being taken away from another Jew he says I don’t take away livelihood from other Jews. 

Today I saw it happen in front of me and I said you know the world is so busy assuming he’s some snobby Flatbush guy while they don’t know anything about him. That realization triggered the same thing about the other person in my office. Its so sad how the world has so quickly come to sum her up and not even take the time to get to see who she is as a person. She’s a person, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt….the list is endless. Sometimes I wish the world would stop seeing people the way they want to and instead see people for who they really are. This woman has a huge heart. She cares so much about people, she deals with more stress then most people I know and she’s doing her best. But the world is busy looking the other way, and while yes there are things that I would do differently in certain situations but we all have faults. Yes every one of us has character traits or habits that we’re not the most proud of. Is it fair for the world to look at our faults and see nothing else? To be so wrapped up in the things they see that we do they find objectionable that they don’t even see our goodness?

 If you cant take the effort to get to know the person and see what they are really all about, then realize that fact and stop and tell yourself that you don’t know the whole story. There are plenty of people out there who are misinterpreted. They are stamped, labeled and put in a box for things that are either so superficial or things about them that are completely misunderstood. So find one person in your life that you’ve come to a conclusion on or even if it’s a specific aspect of someone that you misconstrued, and resolve to get to take off those glasses that see him or her that way and get to know the person they really are.