First Impressions
This past year has been an interesting one as far as how my impressions of different people have evolved. I have a problem with seeing things in people that aren't really there.
It's so hard to separate your quick snap judgments of people from reality. So many times I'm interacting with a caricature and not the real person. It makes things easier when you do that, because you don't have to invest the mental energy to truly evaluate them and try to see them realistically.
This last weekend I kind of experienced a reevaluation of a person. He had a reputation as being someone of loose morals who wasn't afraid to take advantage of people. But I got to sit down with him and got my eyes opened a little bit. Certainly he has his fair share of worldly vices, but at the same time he has principles that he sticks to; specifically loyalty and integrity. I came away from that weekend with a completely different outlook on him. I still feel a little wary around him, since I'm just a distrustful person, but I definitely have more respect and a greater understanding of him.
I've met other people who I thought were kind and compassionate, which they were, but they were also frightened and self-interested. People are paradoxes. We don't fit into neat little boxes. We don't even understand ourselves. We tell ourselves we do something for one reason, when really we do it for a completely different reason. I think that's why self-reflection is such a hard process. It's like looking into a set of parallel mirrors, there's just an infinite amount depth. You can get lost pretty easily.
I guess you just have to keep looking, until you start to really understand.