Influence, Judgment and the ability to know...

A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens



Got to thinking recently, due to that quote, about how well you can ever really know someone.
And how much second hand information can influence you as opposed to your own judgment.
I’m sure we have all had both experiences.
Let’s say you meet someone, totally at random, on your own, with no prior knowledge of them or their life before that moment. They can be whoever you choose them to be. No prejudice, no influence, no impediment.
You also have no idea what you might be in for, who their friends are, what their family is like. You have no choice but to trust. And it is almost easier in this circumstance to trust. You follow your gut, your friends are not there to guide you so you must do it yourself.
Of course, this all has a downside. They could have a very checkered past and you will not know until it’s too late.
But then again, they don’t know you either.
It’s a trust game.
A very exciting, enticing experience.

Now what about the converse situation. One where you know someone, even remotely, and you know some things about them, second-hand of course, and you may even hear bad things about them. Or good.
How much does that affect your opinion?
I know myself that not everyone likes me, nor agrees with my choices.
But those who do know and love me, well, they do so because they know my heart.
They don’t judge me by some perhaps not-so-smart decisions.
They know the real me, they also know that any hearsay is just that.
But someone else might judge, might not give me that chance just on that basis alone.
Is that a fair shake?

So, what do you do?
Do you trust yourself, your own judgment?
Or do you listen to everyone else and possibly not give someone a fair chance because of it.

There are many platitudes about judgmental behaviour, I am not going to repeat them…
Suffice to say, that unless you have been mistreated, abused or otherwise personally been affected negatively by the person in question, the best route is to use your
own guidance, your own sense of good and bad, and most importantly, judge someone only by how they treat you, how they make you feel in their presence.

Don’t listen to gossip. Don’t believe everything you read or hear, hell even see sometimes.
And please, don’t judge.
You never, ever know the truth by second hand alone.
Even your friends, in their misguided yet well meaning advice, might advise you to stay away from someone, or not associate with certain people.
Of course their heart is in the right place, but when pressed, almost 90% of the time this advice is by hearsay alone. They don’t know them personally.
Now if their best friend, mother, sister, roommate, says stay away…well maybe you should think about doing just that. But always remember the source, always.

We are so influenced by what other people think, and so confused by our own gut instinct, we don’t trust ourselves.

Chances are if you believe someone to be a good person, even waaaayyyy deep down, so does someone else, and chances are, they ARE a good person. But good gossip doesn’t get spread as far as the fertilizer does.

Just a thought to keep in mind…