In Their Shoes

It's never been easy to not judge someone based on their looks, behavior, outlook in life, the things they do and so on so forth. Actions, after all, are the clearest indication of what a person feels or thinks about a certain subject matter. And hence, most people would say that it is fair enough that we interpret a person based on their character and the things they do and how they behave in life.

I would too. It is only the next most sensible thing to do. After all, people decide the person you are based on the things you have or have not achieved in life.

A drug addict finds it harder to be employed simply because most employees would fear that he might fall into the same old circle again and cause them more trouble in their employment.

Most people would turn down a poor homeless guy for fear that he might spread some communicable disease to them, especially if he looks filthy with unkempt hair, and clothes that look like they have never touched detergent in their life.

Once a cheater, always a cheater, the saying goes. Your wife/girlfriend might never be able to trust you the same way again.

But do we really have the right to decide what type of person one is simply by their past (or even, their present) actions? Is it really fair to them? After all, what we see is the surface. And ONLY the surface, nothing more. We will never know their true thoughts nor their intentions regardless whether it is good or bad. We might not know the things that this person had to go through which has led to his eventual choices in his life. And most importantly, we must not ever underestimate the feelings of that person, thinking them to be trivial or merely an illusion.

What I am trying to say is that there can be many reasons a person chooses to behave in one way and not another. It is easy to tell someone to do something, but being the actual person doing it is altogether a different matter.

It takes strength to come to a decision on a difficult matter but what is more difficult is sticking to that decision.

I shall end this post with a quote from Brian Tracy, a self-help and motivational author.

Your decision to be, have and do something out of ordinary entails facing difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.