OUR FIRST IMPRESSIONSWe tend to “make-up” our mind too soon when we meet new people.
We say that when we are being critical of our own manners but kit is good that in almost the same breath, we seem to realized that we do, indeed, take a second look far more often than we admit.
What a tests do you put a newcomers through, in your own mind, before you accept them as a close associates or as a personal friends? First impressions, while sound in many ways, can – at times – be deceptive.
Wisdom dictates a second estimate in most cases.
I can think of one case in my own experience in which I relegated a certain individual to a lower level in my estimation without bothering to find that she had experienced difficulties as a child which had placed the utmost demands upon her. Having overcome such physical and mental dis-advantages to a degree, or learned to live with them for the most part, she has been very successful in her own demanding field of work. I have recently had the chance to revise my opinions about her and to relocate her to a higher place on my unwritten, non-posted, scale of “like” and “dislike”.
That one case reminds me that we should always realize it may well be our own ignorance f he person's genuine qualities which makes us place them where we do. After all, critics ask, who are we to judge what a person's true worth is at any one time? To do so, without inquiring into the basic truths of their living is wrong. Since that experience, I have made such placements with greater care. I have been fortunate in that none of my trespasses have, as far as I know – have harmed any other person- only myself in being denied that person and not absorbing, perhaps, some positive element from their special aura.
This is all a two-way street,too.
Don't let “first impressions” other people get when they meet you for the first time. Be honest. Be strait-forward and sincere. If you feel at all “uncomfortable” about what other people might think at such a moment, it is time to get busy doing some urgent revisions.
A.L.M. June 16, 2005 {c388wds]
