I remember an instance in my early 20s. The days when I and my friends would strut the famously trendy Kings Road in the London borough of Chelsea, like the cool dudes we thought we were. On this day, I saw a lady friend across the road…or at least I thought it was her. Excited, I ran across the road with my arms aloft in anticipation of a big hug from someone I hadn’t seen in ages. But the closer I got to her, the less it looked like her. “Ah! What should I do now?” I had to think fast. Being the smart boy that I was, I just continued running until I ran past her, still smiling, still excitedly waving my arms in the air as if it was someone else I was running to meet all along. Of course, because there wasn’t actually anybody else, I had to just keep running until I found myself out of view of anyone who could have seen how I initially ran across the road with so much excitement. I must have looked so silly. I certainly felt it. And as a man about town in those days, my street cred was at stake too. What if anyone I knew had seen me? If memory serves me well, I paid a visit to the optician the following week and purchased the pair of glasses I had foolishly avoided getting all those years. I can just imagine the thoughts that must have run through the minds of the other pedestrians on the famously busy road, that day. “There goes another one who’s gone cuckoo. Maybe it’s the weather that’s got to him? Or he’s probably been smoking some of that funny stuff.” You know how people think. Heck! At my age now, I would probably think the same.
One crucial lesson that my five and a half decades on this earth has taught me is that we can’t really say we know people until we get close to them. From afar, most seem great but the more you get to know them, the more they seem less like the person you thought you knew. I’m not necessarily saying they fall short of your initial assessment or even exceed it, just different to our previously held impression. It goes without saying that people must have said the same about me too. After all, I’m as human as the next person. Another mistake we’re prone to make as human beings is to exempt ourselves of “faults” we see in others. It’s quite natural for us not to see those things in ourselves as no one really interacts with himself in that sense. It would however be unwise for us to hastily conclude that we’re totally free of such “faults”, based only on our own perception of ourselves. Just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Subscribe To Unlimited Premium Digest.
This is premium content. Subscribe or Login to read the entire article.
Subscribe
Gain access to all our Premium contents.More than 1,000+ Articles, News, & Scholarships.
EduTimes Africa, a product of Education Times Africa, is a magazine publication that aims to lend its support to close the yawning gap in Africa's educational development.
