The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him the most about humanity, answered “Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices his money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
I believe there are all kinds of people in this world. Good. Bad. And many in between. Frequently, we meet a different/new kind of person, just when we thought that by now – we have met every kind. Some of them shock us in a bad way and some of them in a good way. I’ve read and heard many times that wisdom comes from accepting that we have no wisdom. I personally believe our values and intentions make us who we are.
When we first meet someone, our mind sees things that our eyes do not. It does calculations so great that it almost knows the person amazingly. What it does though is give us a feeling. Sometimes this feeling is strong, sometimes faint. This depends on one or two things, who the person is and/or how connected we are to our gut feeling.
The result (the feeling) is our instinct telling us something. If this feeling (about the person) is negative, we slowly find that the second or third time around meeting this person, we question our initial judgment, we make excuses, and we shove it under the rug. It’s simple, we don’t want to believe.
Everyone wants new friends, everyone wants love, so we fool ourselves, as human beings often do. After all, we are creatures of emotion, not logic.
And then in time, we find this negative feeling has disappeared. We sense relief. We spend more time with this person and as time goes on- could be weeks, months or years – slowly, we see that this person is either changing or revealing their true colors.
Time reveals all. But they are not changing, are they? We are simply starting to see. We are disappointed, we are hurt, and even though we are, to an extent, shocked, a part of us isn’t entirely surprised. Somewhere deep down, we always knew. But after the second time meeting this person, emotion (of some sort) started to build and do what it does best: clog our judgment. We must never ignore the little voice in our head.
I find that no matter what reputation a person may have, no matter how good they look on paper, no matter how highly people speak of him/her (and all those may be accurate), still, nothing and no one will tell you about a person more or better than your instinct. Trust it. It will never fail you. And if ever, the instinct is faint, well it’s like the Japanese proverb goes: “When character of man is not clear to you, look at his friends.”
Moose Out.
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Reading your article reminded me when I was younger. I was a very bad judge of character, and always ended up hurt by the other people. However as I grew up I realised that parents/family's instinct were always right on. A mother or father tends to almost alwas have that right feeling about a friend of yours. If they were good or bad. a bit off topic, but it reminded me of that. I found it very refreshing. Thanks for the read.
Thanks a lot Fay ! =) Yes we must always listen to our parents . Grownups will notice human nature much easier in kids therefore it is easier for them to see . I'm really glad you liked it =)
Anything in everything suvives and disappear in will of Allah swt.some group with their intellectual quotes refer abstract as for addiction of gathering.Every human with the nature of his sense understands well enough the good,bad,right and wrong that alarming by mysterious power of brain. Abnormality of passion in all angles, steps and moves,greedy vs gullibility,excessive expectation,illusionary dream,events of sad ends : how to define? for ex: mahasen cyclone in burma and prior to that outrageous of enormous muslim innocent inhertitants and shadow incidental arrogance being occuring on the globe.Timely need for self justification and accountability.Any humen , athiest or of any way of section binding responsible here and hereafter in eternal.
Mass truly an awe inspiring piece .. enjoyed every word of it
A mother or father tends to almost alwas have that right feeling about a friend of yours. If they were good or bad. a bit off topic, but it reminded me of that. I found it very refreshing. Thanks for the read.