Follow Your Passions

Prejudice is a reality. It is something we all experience about some one or some thing else, judging with our eyes when we have little else to go on. It is a natural reaction. But what you do about your reaction, how you process it, makes ALL the difference. Do you take your prejudices and let them rule your experiences and interactions with others? Or, are you conscious of your prejudices, and do you try to make sure they don’t affect your life and the lives of those around you in artificial ways?

When I meet someone new, regardless of skin color, environment, style, or any sort of outward appearance (except, perhaps to some degree, body language), I try desperately to give people the same high level of respect when I meet them for the first time. My philosophy is to start at that high level, and hope that they exceed or match it (and they usually do). It means it is up to their actions and words to make me gain or lose respect for them, not whether they are in a wheel chair, or they are a different age, or female, or from a different part of the world, etc.

Today as you go out into the world and spend another day in the world, experiment with seeing how differently people react to you if you begin the relationship by granting them a great deal of respect just for being a human being, capable of joy and suffering just as much as yourself.