” We are all a good guy and also a bad guy in someone else’s life” – a friend
A couple of weeks ago I had a short but meaningful conversation with one of my ex-colleague, in which we kind of arrived at the conclusion above. Having been living for a while with all life’s ups and down has taught me a lot about our distorted and changing perceptions of other people over time.
What I found is that our perception of someone we know in life is not merely judged by our own personal experience with the person. it is also hugely contributed by other people’s perceptions. Be it your friends, colleagues, or acquaintances.
Ok, Let me break it down one by one, and let’s exclude someone you don’t know in person like celebrities or public figures this time around to simplify our discussion.
1. Our personal experience
Indeed we think that we sincerely see our friend just the way they are, however, there is a time when they are making a mistake it completely changes your perception of them. Or maybe you experience in a position where you are judged by one of your actions.
People change. So do we.
This is the fact that sometimes we often forget. I don’t think there is a human being that is perfect and always right. One day you are making a mistake, the other day you learn from it. It just keeps going and going. Many times we judge people by one of their actions, without even think that it is not the whole stories.
One example is from my recent experience. With the heat of election season happening in Indonesia, people get so tense with so many things. One of my close cousins seems quite critical about the situation, he just keeps posting some articles or his views in social media that, from my perspective, could trigger more tensions of others instead of bringing more peace. I just hated it and I immediately felt so distant with him that I even don’t feel like wanting to talk nice to him.
It was not the whole story.
Just yesterday I happen to meet him and found that he is still the same person I know, someone that is very helpful and be there when you need him. I tried to see it again the whole picture and realized that he is not a bad person at all. It is just one of his action (which happen I don’t like). I realized that his action of spreading the tension does not define who he is. Again, It is just one of his actions.
How many times we are trapped in this distorted perception situation? I tried to count mine. COUNTLESS.
Let see from my other experience, once I was alienated by some friends that I used to care about because of one thing that I did in the past. They just suddenly created a distance and decided to exclude me from the conversations. I was okay though, I don’t mind losing some friends. It just that the fact that I was judged and treated unfairly because of one thing, and without was given a chance to make things right ~ hurt me the most.
This also happens a lot in relation to social media I guess. How many times we judge someone just based on some articles they share in their news feed? Well, it might is not the whole story about the person.
2. Stories we heard
I feel that I trapped in this situation so many times too. I easily judge people because someone else tells me stories about them. If it is good, then I think it is fine. However when the stories are negative, oh my, this could go wrong.
Let me tell you what happened years ago, which affected me for years. When I was in college I have a friend that I know since high school. Let’s call her Nadya (not her real name). We weren’t really close, but I didn’t really have a negative or positive perception about her anyway, we even barely said hi to each other.
One day, another friend of mine told me some negative stories about Nadya, about her attitude to our friends and how evil she was. Since she is my good friend, I just blindly trusted her and changed my perception of Nadya. Nadya was forever evil in my eyes, and I hated her.
Again, it was not the whole story.
Years later, I got the chance to pursue my master degree in the UK. And guess what, I just happened to live in the same town as Nadya. It was a small community of Indonesian so we know each other quite well. Surprisingly, I didn’t find Nadya evil at all, in fact, she is a very nice person. My negative perception about her that was built for years, gone forever. I was woken up by the question asking me what was Nadya did to me that made me hate her?
The answer: nothing.
You see, how easy it is to fall into a wrong perception about someone else, especially when it is negative. Really, we need to be careful not to fall easily to potentially distorted perception about others, it’s not really for both sides and also, this could potentially jeopardize someone else’s life.
I feel bad for Nadya and I don’t want to fall to this pitfall again in the future.
So…
For me personally, when it comes to our perception to others, let’s try to always see them in a positive light, especially when we don’t really know them. Even if we do, maybe we shouldn’t judge people easily. I believe no one is pure evil.
Let’s clear up our distorted lenses in our glasses, and see others as a whole.
Every person we meet is different. We have different upbringings, feelings and life experiences. Therefore we need to learn the fact that people are changing, we are all growing, and many times,
Our perception is distorted from the whole truth.
“Because in every person you meet, there is a little piece of God in them.” –
Lucious Lyon, Empire
Inuk ☕
Photo from Pexels
TRI NURAINI 
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