Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

I was visiting a favorite blog of mine the other day and the post was about how people judged the inside of her house by what the outside looked like.  That statement led me to think about how we view people and things by their outward appearance.  I'm sure you have driven by a house that was very dilapidated looking from the outside and made a judgment about what the inside must look like.  We all do it...not even thinking that our views are jaded by what we see externally.  The same concept can be applied to the way we view people we see walking on the street, in stores and restaurants making assumptions based on the clothes they wear and the color of their skin and how they behave.  It's interesting to me that we do this without consciously being aware of it.

What does a person you see walking on the street that is wearing tattered and dirty clothes and seems distracted tell you?  Or, a child in a restaurant who is acting out with parents who are obviously trying to control him/her and can't?  What about the lady who is wearing clothes that are very revealing and inappropriate?  The teenager or adult who has piercings and tattoos all over their bodies?  The person who is happy go lucky and eager to meet people in an upscale social setting?  A person severely overweight?

I ask these questions because if we can become more aware of our thoughts and feelings we can control not only how we view outward situations and external houses but the way we look at the internal way we view ourselves and our fellow Americans.  No one deserves to be judged based on their outward appearance.  By closing your mind based on the way things look to you on the outside you put yourself in a box and miss out on opportunities to learn something new, find common ground in a cause or make a new friend.  People who are prejudiced and biased aren't born that way, it is a learned personality trait that you can change and in doing so change the way you view yourself too.

Too often people are quick to judge the person who is overweight and on needy family relief by saying they are obese, lazy, and don't want to work, the person who is wearing clothes that are too tight as trashy, the teen or adult who has piercings and tattoos as a hoodlum, the happy go lucky person as strange and out of their element in a circle of people who think they are better because of the money they have.  I have to ask, what do you think people think of you?