Just for today, try not to assume anything about anyone. Let each person you encounter remain a mystery. People are far too complex to be able to be accurately guessed into a personality. I am so appreciative when people meet me with an open mind and let me show them who I am instead of trapping me in the box of their programmed assumptions.
We pass by thousands of people every single day. While walking to class, buying groceries, at the gym and more. Most of these people we don't know, however, we are able to make an assumption about them right away based on what they're wearing, their behavior, how "put together" they look, along with many other things. What we need to realize, though, is that all of these things are simply our own observations. In reality, we know nothing about the people we pass by every day. We likely will never see them again. So why is it fair for us to make assumptions about people we don't even know?
What I've started to realize and keep in mind is that people are just people. So many of us are criticized for being different, or having an interest in things that aren't "mainstream." At the end of the day, it shouldn't matter how we like to spend our time or what we like to do. There will always be people who accept us. My big thing, however, is that we need to work on not criticizing others for doing what they enjoy because like I said, people are just people, and there's no reason anyone should feel insecure or weird for doing what they love.
I'm no exception; I often find myself judging others based off of their appearance or their presence on social media. In reality, I have no idea who this person is, and I'm sure if I ended up getting to know them, my perception of them would completely change. There have been times where I've seen a person around and made myself believe I didn't like them because they "seemed annoying" or I didn't like the way they carried themselves. After I make these preconceived assumptions, I happen to get to know them through a class or mutual friend and realize that they're actually not as bad as I had made myself think.
There are times where we may get to know someone and decide we don't quite click with them, and that's OK. However, what's not OK is becoming negative or mean towards them just because they're not the same as us. I think that in general, people need to start being kinder to other people. There's no reason to be rude no matter the circumstance. Just because someone we know has a quirk that we don't quite like doesn't give us permission to criticize them or talk bad about them to others. Even if they've done something to hurt us, there's no reason to talk poorly about them because that just puts the negativity on us.
It's hard not to judge people based on first impressions. However, we need to keep in mind that first impressions aren't always reality. Just because people are different from us or act a certain way doesn't mean we have the right to judge them based on it. Everyone is going through something that we don't know about, and they could be doing certain things or acting a specific way due to that. We obviously won't be able to get along with every single person that crosses our path, but there's no reason to waste our energy being negative towards others. Everyone has their own thing, and if they enjoy it and it makes them happy, then we shouldn't make them feel bad for it.
