Perception is Deceptive

Think back to being a teenager and remember the feeling of being ignored. Whether you were the kid passed by without a glance from the cool kids or the cool kid who wanted more attention from your parents. Maybe you wanted a cute boy to recognize you or the teacher to notice how hard you’ve been working. Maybe you even strived to be “bad” to stand out from your peers or siblings. Whatever your story, I’m sure you have at least one memory of feeling ignored and hating it.

Now think about the present. Do you ever walk through a room or church or store and ignore someone? Of course you do. There is no possible way to recognize and say hello to every person you see. Now imagine one of those people noticed that you ALWAYS walk by without saying hi. You mean nothing by it…but they perceive you as ignoring them. Ever do that? How about this…ever been that person feeling ignored? It’s a very scary cycle that we all go through and the power of it is indescribable.

I’ve heard it preached that when we get to heaven we will see how many lives we’ve influenced – whether intentional or not. The simple smile you give to a nice cashier or the dirty look you shot the person who stole a parking space from you. The kind word you spoke to your mailman or the feeling the mailman had by seeing you every day and never getting a moment of your attention. I bet you can think of at least 4 situations where you’ve been the ignorer, the ignoree, the nice person and the not so nice person.

You see, I know I’m going to go to church tomorrow and ignore someone. For all I know, this person has seen me week after week and I’ve never noticed them. There will also be people that don’t say hi to me for whatever reason (on purpose or not) and I’ll notice, again. But the thing I’m realizing is that this cycle of perception is so dangerous because many times these occurrences are not intentional. However, they can turn into offenses and hurt feelings which then leads to walls and missed relationships.

I know from experience that some people don’t like me until they get to know me. One of my longest friendships started after I proved to a girl that I wasn’t the stuck up snob she thought I was. I was just shy and quiet and homesick and hurting. Another friendship started after I proved to another girl that I wasn’t as weird and “punk” as she thought I was. Some people will judge me based on my appearance or unintentional dirty looks. Others will assume they’d have nothing in common with me. And some will even think that I wouldn’t want to talk to THEM. It’s all deceptive perceptions. And that stinks that so many relationships will not happen due to these lies. But the worst part is that I’ll do the same thing to other people. I won’t talk to someone because they’re loud and I’m not a loud person. I won’t meet someone because they already have 10 friends and why would they need another? I’ll judge someone for the way they treat others rather than considering maybe they’re just having a bad day.

See where I’m going with this?

Well if not – let me spell it out for you. Make a conscious decision to break the cycle every single day. As I said, you cannot say hi to every person you see. But you can TRY. Set a goal. Say hi to 5 new people a day. Smile at a person who looks sad. Finally go over and introduce yourself to the person you’ve seen 100 times and feel weird about never meeting. Be kind to strangers. Thank your mailman. Go meet your neighbor that you’ve noticed but pretend you haven’t. Make a difference in someone’s life.