JOIN USIt is an irrefutable fact that peace and comfort derived from great interpersonal relations with humans around, be it at one’s workplace, or in one’s family/friends’ circuit, could always act as an antidote to high-level stress in these tension-fraught modern times.
Despite being aware of this, we see relationships floundering nowadays, with many people finding it an onerous task to pull along with others around. This is mainly because of our mindset against people we do not like, besides our tendency to misconstrue their words/actions, and miscomprehend their nature/behaviour. Of course, we try being judgemental, too.
I’m reminded of a classmate who had this staid and clinical disposition. She was always in a wilful seclusion, not interacting with anyone around.
Her silent and self-effacing quality was misapprehended as being snooty and stand-offish. But slowly, we heard of her father’s untimely demise and that her mother was grappling with a plethora of problems to provide her and four siblings proper education and good life.
Drowning in dreadful depression, she had decided to distance herself from everyone. Indeed, it’s true “you can’t judge a person, until you have walked in his shoes for a mile.”
Incidentally, in Mumbai, a neighbour used to always take a swipe at the skinflint attitude of her spinster aunt, who, though steeped in supreme wealth, it seems, on visits, would never bring even a bar of chocolate to her children.
But when my neighbour’s spouse, mired in financial problems committed suicide, it was this aunt who extricated her from the debt mesh by lending financial succour.
In the two instances, if the positive facet of the person is masked, there are cases wherein the negatives are slickly camouflaged, which confounds you when you discern them.
For instance, a person with outward pleasing demeanour, who you presume to be a pious and virtuous human, may turn out to be a poisonous vermin. A person who looks naïve and guileless may be in reality a strategist, a hard-core schemer, ever slyly machinating and jockeying moves to his advantage.
And a person, who you think is trustworthy, may be a crafty two-timer, notching up nefarious schemes against you. Also, a simple and unpretentious-looking person, behind his façade, may be a very conceited and supercilious being.
Apparently, appearances are deluding that makes it difficult to judge someone instantly. At times, people’s morphed versions of other persons, too, obscure your vision in making the right judgement about them.
So, the best bet here is to formulate your own opinions of people around, based on your own discretion. Remember, one ought to judge people by “what you know about them and not by what you hear about them”!