The Standard

It’s sad when we choose to characterize people on how we choose to see them and not how they really are.  The easiest thing in the world to do is also the most harmful to our relationships; judging. 

    People are different.  We see and react to things differently.  Since this is the case, why do we then seem to put everyone in the same category, ignoring that fact?  On top of that, if they don’t fit in that category then they must be “odd”, “strange” and “different”.  So in a world where no one is the same, where do we get off pointing out certain things about people and calling them out as different?  While they are different, how are they more different than anyone else?  We all say hello differently, laugh uniquely, have a smile that is all our own, yet in some people we choose to point out their uniqueness as something to be frowned upon.  Where did this standard come from in which we all seem to hold “other people” to?

    The thought is saddening but at the same time strikes in me a conviction for I myself suffer from the same ill thinking.  How often do I treat someone differently because they do not fit in the same “box” I alone find acceptable?  What is to be gained from this except that it lessens the work of having to be considerate?  If I decide a person, based on their actions or just plain existence, is not in tune with my way of thinking, how easy is it for me to write them off as being “different” and unworthy of the effort of understanding?  I shut them off from my world and I from theirs and in that I close my mind from learning something new.  The danger lies in more than mistreating someone, but also in limiting ourselves.  With each person holding certain ideas, goals, views, and unique walks in life, to deny even the opportunity of experiencing life in their eyes by simply talking with them, is to cheat oneself out of the chance to grow.

How can we justify judging those we deem different?  Even those who can effectively pull off an air of “normalcy” suffer for their actions.  It takes so much more work to hide those differences in ourselves than it would just to walk proudly and accept that we are not just like everyone else.

    The only being with the right to judge anyone created us just the way we are.  Does it make any sense for Him to condemn us for being exactly how He made us?  What makes even less sense is for anyone to think he or she alone holds the standard for which all others must be measured up to.  How can a toy with equal standing with all the other toys in the toy box possibly contain the one element out of all of them that makes it the one they must all look to?  Would it not make better sense for the Creator of the toy to be that standard?

    The judgment we inflict on each other for the mere act of not being the way we would so desire the other to be seems about as ridiculous as one fussing at the color blue for not being the color green.  I hope that I can learn to stifle my own ill thoughts when it comes to the placement of people in my mind.  Just because the color blue is not the color green, it does not make it any less of a color, just one that is its own.