Grandma’s Wisdom
Hello all, Henry here today. My grandmother was a lovely lady loved by everyone in her little community. When she died at 92 she had a huge funeral. She was also a woman of strong opinions. Repeatedly I heard her say that; “I always make up my mind what I think of someone as soon as I meet them. Within a couple of minutes I know that I think of them and it never changes.”
I was always impressed by her wisdom and by her ability to read people. It was only much later that I realized that her “wisdom” was not based on the reality of the person she was meeting, but on projection.
Like many people, she lived her day to day life with other people based on her projections, largely seeing what she wanted or expected to see. It was a good thing that she was such a kind person, as she tended to have positive opinions of people. It is a lovely feeling to know exactly where you stand with others all of the time, but it doesn’t build relationships very well.
We need to second guess our first impressions. Why am I reacting that way to that particular person? What am I picking up or who do they remind me of? Who do I see when I look at them? We’ve all had someone, often a lover say, “You sound just like my mother!” Truth be told, we probably sounded a little like them, but not “just” like them. We all see things that aren’t there.
What is happening to us and around us can have a large effect on how we see others and how we make judgments about them.
The only way I know of to truly get to know someone is to set our prejudices aside and listen to their story. If we really listen to other people and get to know them, it gets harder and harder to see things that aren’t there and our relationships will be the better for it.