“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be
totally wrong about people;
to see only one tiny part of them and
confuse it for the whole.”
Lauren Oliver

So often we make judgments about people by the way they dress, how they talk, who their friends are, where they live, how they make their living, whether they are old or young. Without even talking with someone we make up our minds who they are and what kind of person they may be. I am not sure why that is. Probably has something to do with our own vulnerability and lack of self-confidence.

I get upset if I think someone is judging me for something they think they know about me. Some people seem to think I don’t have any problems because I don’t have children or aging parents to care for or because I am retired that I must have made a lot of money when I worked. There are those who think because I am quiet and an introvert that I must have been a sweet well-behaved child/teen/young adult who never rebelled or caused any worries or problems for my family.  None of that is true. I have problems, I don’t have a lot of money, I was a rebellious person. Well, I am still something of a rebel albeit in a quiet non-disruptive way.

Because I do get upset with others because of what I think they are thinking about me I try to see others as just people. Not good or bad, better or worse than me, just people like me living each day as it comes.  Some days I am successful in being non-judgmental some days not so much. But I have learned people are made up of lots of parts and no one part makes them who they are. It takes all the parts put together to make a whole person.

It can be confusing trying to figure out how the parts fit together, though!