I have been wondering what my next post should be about; my last one was so serious that I didn’t want to post another one about my past quite yet. I was looking for inspiration for this one and as I was packing my things up to move to my new apartment here in three weeks I came across my favorite book from when I was a little girl, Elmer by David McKee.
How much time do we spend judging someone for how they look, what they are into, or by their actions? We can all say, “I don’t judge,” or “I try not to judge often”. But ask yourself is that really the truth? If it is then I applaud you, but I know for me that I am guilty of judging, sometimes even before anything is out of the persons mouth. I suppose this piggy backs off of the last quote from my last post and my challenge that I posed to you. The quote was from Sylvia Plath and was:
“So many people are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only you were interested in them.”
We in society or so quick to judge people because of their past or who they are now, but really you don’t know why they are who they are or even truly what they have gone through in their past if you don’t talk to someone.
Think about high school. If your school was like mine you had the choice of where you sat at lunch and if it was also like mine it was very clicky..but there was always a table or someone you could tell when they came through that lunch line that they didn’t know where to sit because they didn’t feel like they belonged any where. I bet you didn’t offer for them to sit with you, maybe your group of friends even picked on and bullied that kid.
Our pasts are what make us unique. If it weren’t for our pasts and our choices now then we would all be extremely boring and never really have anything to talk about and life would just be dull.
A good example of people judging me involves when they do find out that I had an abortion, they think that I could have picked any of those other options but they don’t get to know me enough to hear the story or they are just so set in their ways that automatically I am a bad person, a killer, ect.
That is their choice. But we were made unique and have been lead through the hardships that we have because we are all meant to be the person that we are.
You are all wonderful exactly how you are. Your past is the past, you can’t let it control you in a negative way. That is hard sometimes, trust me I know but at some point you have to let it go so you can grow and be healthy.
My major is child, adult, family services so a lot of my jobs when I graduate will be social work type jobs or working with troubled youth and you can’t judge those people. I worked in a residential treatment center for children with severe behavioral issues. What do you think age wise i am talking about right now? Older I bet, but no, these kids were between 5 and 13 was the oldest I worked with; a lot of these kids were 8 to 11 though. They have been in and out of foster care, abusive homes, or they can’t find placement because of their behavior.
Before I worked there I probably would have judged every single one of them. I probably even did a little bit when I first started working there, judging makes us human, and when people would hear me talk about work at all they would judge those kids. They are just kids. They are kids who come from broken families, abusive homes, have been sexually abused and when you are reading their intake file so you get to know them and their triggers and everything your heart breaks. For each one of those children it breaks and you get mad because how could someone put a child through that type of stuff! But you can’t show them sympathy, when they cry because they miss home or because of their past you are there for them, but at the same time you can’t grow fond because they need discipline and structure. You see them act out and try to attack each other and staff, even you and you can’t understand what goes through their mind or why they think its okay. You become shocked almost, but then when they see you come into work and run up and give you a giant hug because they are excited to see you, or they want to play tag outside its like a light bulb goes off in your head and you realize that they really deep down inside are not different than any one else, not your children, not you, not your siblings. They want what all of us want, they want a home, to feel loved, to be a kid.
I am sure you are all wondering how Elmer plays into what probably seems like a rant but it does. For those of you who have never read Elmer he is an elephant with many different colors, he looks different than all his elephant friends and a lot of the time they pick on him. One day he realizes if he rolls around in berries that he becomes the same color as the rest of them and he feels better. Well then one day it rains and the juices from the berries start to wash off and all the other elephants tell him that they have missed him and everything else, that it was the best prank he has ever played and from that day on once a year they have a day where they paint themselves to look all crazy and weird like him.
He thought he was being judged, he thought he had to change to be just like the rest and in the end they loved him for who he was. Get to know someone! Love them for who they are! that friendship. You are no better than anyone else. I am no better or worse then all of you. We are just different and have been through different things. Be that person who can be themselves and have the confidence to not blend in with society. Who will make others, like Elmer, want to celebrate him one day out of the year. Be someone that when you die people can look back at pictures and stuff and go, “That was the guy/girl who befriended me, who helped show me people care”. Don’t be the person people don’t have good things to say, who thinks they are better than anyone else.
You are wonderful just the way you are!
Be you!
Be unique!!
Nothing Worth Having Ever Comes Easy 