Friends & Enemies

I hope you enjoyed Zach's blog yesterday. We may be getting more of those in the future. But today my post is about openmindedness and enemies.

You know, sometimes I wonder if we really ever see people with an open mind. There is seems to always, without fail, be a positive or negative sway.

You don't even have to know them. We all know how often we're judged upon our looks. But what about our actions? When we tell jokes in the front of the class and everyone's laughing, what is the kid in the back thinking? The kid who's just observing? Unfortunately, nobody ever makes an informed decision, because nobody knows everything about us. There's always something people don't know about it, even if we don't realize it.

And the real problem is that we often end up looking for faults in those we don't like. It happens to me all the time, and I don't mean to do it. But it's not just me. I've constantly found myself being stared at, observed. And I look at them, and it's always the stare that says "What is wrong with you?" And it is absolutely infuriating.

But when I find myself staring blankly at the people who get on my nerves, do I give them this look? Am I as bad as them? And the unfortunate answer is that it's quite possible.

We don't even treat our friends with an open mind. I constantly observe malicious rumors passing from friends to friends. And I think to myself, aren't these people supposed to be friends? When they hear stuff like this, don't they ask themselves whether or not that sounds like their friend? Don't they first go and ask their friend personally?

Of course, it's not the friends who really spread the rumors intentionally. They spread it to their close friends, but they forget that everyone's got different circles. And the circles interlap until it reaches a spreader. A spreader is one of those people who spreads gossip regardless of who it is about. Be it a friend or a total stranger, they'll spread it if it's juicy. We all know someone like that, and it's thanks to these sorts of people that we have people being judged without reliable grounds.

So there's really only one solution. There may be someone in our class who is an asshole, but chances are, if you don't want to know them, then you don't have to. What this means is that you just have to do your best to ignore them completely. And when you do hear rumors about people, just remember. We're all different. My normal behavior could be annoying as all hell to another person, and vice versa. If you just keep that in mind, you can have a lot more friends and a lot less enemies.


"Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde