What gives someone the right to judge another? At what point does one person get to decide, dictate and announce the character of another human being?
Now, I won't lie. I was pretty heated when I wrote that. Let me fill you in a little. Now, anyone who's read my blogs or knows me at all knows I am recently divorced. I made a mistake, and my husband left me. That's the short and sweet of it all. I told him because I felt bad; he took it and broad-casted it for anyone in the world to see as something much much worse; he's made me out to be a pure villain, and he a saint. Well, that's just fine. I bit my tongue, I swallowed what pride I had left, and I let the guy do what he needed to do to help his own healing process. I did what I had to to protect myself; and for the most part I had assumed he was moving on from his initial response of telling anyone who knew me anything he could to make them hate me too. He told me I was a liar, and our whole relationship was just a lie too; none of it was real, none of it mattered. So to a large group of relative strangers, I appear to be the most monstrous woman alive; a cruel, heartless liar who never loved anyone in her life.
Some good advice from my mother, God love her, helped me through that at the first; she told me that people will sit around talking about people no matter what the truth of it might be. But that I don't have to take it. So I ignored him, and his Hate-Aubrey club. Let me tell ya, when you want someone to disappear out of your life, and you don't want to hear the latest drama, ignorance is the best assistant.
As of late, I have received, from various good friends, word that, after three months and a divorce, he is still up to these antics. Not just him, but others who had claimed to be "Above" that kind of behavior. That's what got me ticking that night on Facebook. But I don't like to post in the heat of emotion, because it leads to some very dumb writing. I like to take time to cool down and look at the situation with perspective.
And now we hit the heart of what I am getting at; Perspective. Perception, if you will.
Now, my question is at what point does one person get to outright dictate the character of another? And why is it okay to take something like the character of a person based on the word of someone else? Especially someone who clearly has problems dealing with that person. It just seems nuts to me, and yet we do it all the time.
But isn't it all in perspective? Isn't the way we see someone's character biased by our own personal perception? For example, my baby sister's closest friends see me as someone they love dearly, and even look up to to an extent. My mom sees me as her baby girl, who's always making a mess of herself. My friends see me as a person they can trust for a good laugh and like to be around. My ex-husband sees me as a monster.
And I see them all differently as well. My perceptions and experiences with a person are not the same as another person's.
In a Sociology class I once took, we discussed this very thing. Our professor told a story of four people who all witnessed the same crime. But none of them told the exact same story. Where someone may remember four people being involved, another may have only noticed two. And so it's important to get all the different perceptions so we can put together a realistic picture of what actually happened.
I think this same theory should apply on more personal levels. It is not right, nor is it fair, to base an opinion of someone and their character off one person's say so. It is not okay to hate someone when you only know one side of a story. So in closing, I would ask any of you who read this to keep those thoughts in mind.
We are all guilty of off hand judgments; none of us have ever heard something about someone we don't know and automatically thought "Hmm, I should really ask around and find out more before I decide to say this person is evil." But we can start. We can all consciously try to remember that no good story ever has just one perspective. And no person's character can be judged by one person's perception.
Some good advice from my mother, God love her, helped me through that at the first; she told me that people will sit around talking about people no matter what the truth of it might be. But that I don't have to take it. So I ignored him, and his Hate-Aubrey club. Let me tell ya, when you want someone to disappear out of your life, and you don't want to hear the latest drama, ignorance is the best assistant.
As of late, I have received, from various good friends, word that, after three months and a divorce, he is still up to these antics. Not just him, but others who had claimed to be "Above" that kind of behavior. That's what got me ticking that night on Facebook. But I don't like to post in the heat of emotion, because it leads to some very dumb writing. I like to take time to cool down and look at the situation with perspective.
And now we hit the heart of what I am getting at; Perspective. Perception, if you will.
Now, my question is at what point does one person get to outright dictate the character of another? And why is it okay to take something like the character of a person based on the word of someone else? Especially someone who clearly has problems dealing with that person. It just seems nuts to me, and yet we do it all the time.
But isn't it all in perspective? Isn't the way we see someone's character biased by our own personal perception? For example, my baby sister's closest friends see me as someone they love dearly, and even look up to to an extent. My mom sees me as her baby girl, who's always making a mess of herself. My friends see me as a person they can trust for a good laugh and like to be around. My ex-husband sees me as a monster.
And I see them all differently as well. My perceptions and experiences with a person are not the same as another person's.
In a Sociology class I once took, we discussed this very thing. Our professor told a story of four people who all witnessed the same crime. But none of them told the exact same story. Where someone may remember four people being involved, another may have only noticed two. And so it's important to get all the different perceptions so we can put together a realistic picture of what actually happened.
I think this same theory should apply on more personal levels. It is not right, nor is it fair, to base an opinion of someone and their character off one person's say so. It is not okay to hate someone when you only know one side of a story. So in closing, I would ask any of you who read this to keep those thoughts in mind.
We are all guilty of off hand judgments; none of us have ever heard something about someone we don't know and automatically thought "Hmm, I should really ask around and find out more before I decide to say this person is evil." But we can start. We can all consciously try to remember that no good story ever has just one perspective. And no person's character can be judged by one person's perception.
Omg. I totally agreed. People's "opinions" of other people drive me nuts! I try to be as nice as I can be, and I even go as far as to 'allow' them the luxury of being lost souls. But I HATE one sided stories. Especially when it is a personal and private matter that should have never become public anyways.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing to keep in mind is that everyone has a different story. All of the experiences in our lives shape the way we think and feel, therefore, we can never have the same outlook on life or others as another person.