Have you ever noticed somethingabout someone, which caused you to have a sense of negativity or disliketowards them?
Maybe it’s the way the personlooks, their clothes, hair, or just their total appearance as a whole. Maybeit’s their actions, the way they talk, the way they walk, and the way theirpersona seems to be. Maybe you have heard rumors about them.
People say this and that, whichleaves distastefulness in your mouth. Your insight of this person is that ofdisapproval. But the thing is, you don’t know who this person is, you knownothing about them.
You just know what you have seenand what you have heard. You don’t physically know who this person is.
You have never taken the time toerase what is visible, to tune out what others are saying and to get to knowthe person for yourself while discovering the invisibility of the person insideof the visible one.
Now, you have decided to take thestereotypical way out and label the individual, jumping to conclusions withoutever testing your hypothesis. You have been blinded by visibility.
We as humans have all beenblinded by visibility during one point of our lives. To be blinded byvisibility, is to be blinded by what we see exteriorly. Psychologically mostpeople draw conclusions based on outward appearance, without ever consideringthe inward as well.
Some people may have been blindedslightly, eventually regaining their sight once again.
Others have stayed in thedarkness, placing people in a stereotypical box.
Letting what they see and have heard,blind them from discovering the person as a whole.
How one outwardly carries him orherself does play a big role in how one perceives another, but we should notonly consider the external. We would not want anyone to do the same to us, ifit were the other way around.
For example, I met a girl lastyear during my freshman year of college. Her name was Jessica, but everyonecalled her “Big J” or “Titanic,” because of her enormous size.
She was an overweight youngwoman, weighing heavier than most overweight females her age.
We had English together. Eachtime she walked into the classroom someone would burst out into laughter, andother students would snicker amongst each other.
Not having many fashionableclothes to wear because of her weight, she was forced to wear mismatchedoutfits. She was considered to be very unattractive, and did not have manyfriends. No one gave her the time of day based on her appearance.
One evening, I went to thecafeteria with a bunch of my soccer teammates, laughing as we sat down at atable in a big group to eat our food. From across the room I noticed Jessicasitting all by herself at a table, occasionally glancing around at her peers.
Watching them as they ate withtheir friends, then looking down at her as she ate in solitude, my heart wasdismayed as I thought of how sad she must’ve felt.
I then picked up my plate of foodand told my teammates that I was going to go eat with her.
My teammates tried to prevent mefrom going over there, saying that she was a fat, lazy, ugly, stupid girl andby sitting with her I would be considered a loser just like her.
Leaving my teammates behind, Iwent over to Jessica’s table. I asked her if could I eat with her. Withquestion and disbelief in her eyes, she said “yes.” We ate, drank, talked,laughed…ate, drank, talked, and laughed some more.
To find out, Jessica and I had alot in common. She enjoyed drawing, reading, writing music and poetry, as muchas I.
We talked until the cafeteriaworkers made us leave. We walked out of the cafeteria talking about varioustopics. We walked and talked until we had to go our separate ways, heading toour individual dormitory halls.
As I walked by myself to my dorm,I smiled. I smiled because I was proud of myself for not letting what otherssaid or what my eyes saw, stop me from getting to know Jessica for myself.
She was a really cool person, andI would’ve never known, if I had let my visibility blind my mentality fromgetting to know what others could not see.
I had gotten to know her more ona personal basis inwardly, rather than an impersonal level outwardly.
View people not only based ontheir looks, but on their character as well.
Don’t neglect who a person iswithin, as well as without. If you do neglect he or she as a whole, you couldbe missing out on someone who could change your life.
He or she could become a goodfriend and possibly a potential partner in matters of a relationship.
Test your hypothesis(assumption), before coming to a conclusion. Don’t let what is visibly blindyou from discovering what is invisible.
