We Need to Lose Our Glasses to Really See the World

Coz they’re colored whether we know it or not

I recently came across a WhatsApp forward that talked about our need for “labels” to have empathy towards people.

Why does it take a “baby on board” sign on the back of a car for us to drive cautiously?

Why does it take a “reserved for senior citizens” sign to give up a seat for someone who needs it more than us?

Why do we need to be told someone is going through a bad phase to give them the benefit of doubt at work or to forgive or forget some heat－of－the－moment things they may have said？

Why can’t we learn to empathize without any labels？

This really got me thinking about how we tend to judge people consciously and unconsciously without knowing a thing about who they are and what their life has been about？ Let me take you through some instances where I did this, and you will surely relate to one or more of these.

＃1 The Girl That Was Surely Out of My League

When I was still single, while traveling alone on a flight, I would secretly hope for some gorgeous girl to take the seat next to me.

Invariably, it would be a random middle-aged guy who would sleep and snore their way through the journey, let alone have a decent conversation.

Yet, this one time the stars aligned.

I had gotten the worst seat — in the last row, right next to the lavatories — so I was prepared for the constant annoyance of people going in and out and passing me by.

Yet, just then this absolutely attractive girl took the aisle seat in the same row (I had the window）and there was no one in the middle seat.

For the first 30 minutes, I didn’t muster the courage to strike a conversation, just when an air hostess came over to her and asked －“Are you Sania?…I thought so. My brother worked with you in that movie last year.”

After some chatter, when she left, I had the perfect conversation starter.

“Am I sitting next to a movie star and I should be asking for autographs while I have no idea?” I asked in a confident tone.

“I do work as an actor but I am not sure if I can call myself a star,” said Sania with a bit of a giggle and in the most friendly manner.

Turns out she was a regional movie actor who I later figured was famous enough to tweet later that night something on the lines of “I had a great music launch for my upcoming film today, now back at home, mwah to my fans,” along with a picture.

And yet, she and I had a great conversation for the next 90 mins of our flight at the end of which I did click a picture with her just in case she ever got really famous.

But more importantly, I also realized how she really enjoyed the flight for the fact that someone talked to her as if she was just another girl instead of trying to impress or speak about stereotypical things in awe of a star. She also had some similar interests as me in business, finance, music and didn’t care that I was in shorts and a T-shirt while she was dressed like a proper movie star with flawless makeup on.

＃2 That Friend of Mine Who Was Always Happy

Most of us have that one friend in our circle or group that could care less about the serious things in the world and is always making everyone laugh.

We had such a guy too. He would always be cracking jokes, never seemed to be bothered with any emotional or serious discussions, or never seemed to take things seriously enough, often to my surprise.

Nothing would really bother him which made me almost convinced that he either had no EQ or was just too happy in life to be fazed by externalities.

This was until I got to know him closer.

He had had the most troubled childhood, having lost his father early and having seen his mother work as a security guard at a small shopping complex pulling night shifts to put food on the table. He had barely had enough money to buy his books through school before he landed a scholarship in college and a part-time job to help his mom financially.

He had had enough challenges in life that the little things couldn’t bother him anymore. And he had learned his way to deal with the sorrows with the counter of a smile and making others smile.

From then on, I had the most respect for a guy who I not too long ago considered a bit too casual and careless in life.

＃3 The Guy With Long Hair, Piercings, and a Fancy Car in High School

In my high school senior year, we had a guy join the school because his parents had just moved to the city and he has to switch schools for that reason.

He had long hair, a few prominent piercings, and drove a fancy car to school.

Before ever interacting with him, I wrote him off as a spoilt brat who was splurging on a rich dad’s money and wouldn’t care to study at school at all.

This misconception didn’t last long.

He came from very a modest background and happened to be a genius at computer programming and the fancy car came from the millions he had made at age 16 from selling an app he had coded from the tiny house of his parents.

He had then bought his parents a big house and moved them to this big city from their earlier poor village or countryside house.

Of course, he also went on to ace the class getting solid grades across subjects, given the genius he was. And rather than being a casanova or bad boy he was quite reserved and kept to himself and had very few friends in the year he spent at school.

＃4 The Nervous New Colleague at Work

We had this new person join our team at work, hired laterally from an experience that didn’t seem like an obvious fit for the role or the seniority she was offered at work.

She was also a mess in her first week, not being able to figure her way out through the basics of our environment and work systems.

She would fumble every time she was asked of an opinion on something and never really said much voluntarily, and was doomed to fail miserably before she got the boot.

All that changed the first time she gave a presentation in front of our whole team. While she had a fairly nervous start, the content and delivery of her first presentation were outstanding and better than anything most of the team had ever put together, and it was clear she was a subject matter expert in what she was hired to do.

She may not have been the smoothest starter but she had more substance than most of us who had judged her before giving her a fair chance.

＃5 The Old, Bespectacled Man in An Indian Kurta and Dhoti

This one is a giveaway — Mahatma Gandhi, a man who marched on his bare feet and took a nation from slavery to freedom.

You would look at him and he was unassuming and probably mistaken for an illiterate traditional Indian. But he was a foreign-educated qualified lawyer who was one of the best orators the world has ever seen. Fluent in English and in the power of persuasion and a philosopher extraordinaire.

But in most situations or in an ordinary setting you would be forgiven to ignore his presence completely.

Why？ Because we judge a person by so many parameters without getting to know them at all.

And in that process, we lose any chance of ever giving ourselves a fair chance of getting to know the real person behind those first impressions！

So next time you see someone and an image of their personality forms in your head, clouded and biased by all the stereotypes in your head, lose those glasses for a minute and try to look at them with a clear, fresh lens.