I do my best to not be prejudice and for the most part, I’ve done pretty well. Every now and then, like most things, my area of struggle shows its ugly head and after being disturbed by it I recognize it’s there and I can proceed to better myself.
Two things I’ve had a time and a half working on, or really I put off till I got a better understanding, were snobs and people with prejudice. Yeah, I was prejudice of prejudice people and I snubbed snobs. Even when I was a young quiet and shy person I’d let go of my inhibitions without even thinking about it when I came across a snob and I’d get in their face and tell them a thing or two. They just really irritated me.
A scene from Pitch Perfect 2.
Just like bullies, snobs and prejudice people have reasons for why they are that way. I’m not justifying or excusing them, it just helps if you can understand that there’s a “why”.
If you want me to tell you the why, sorry, there’s a lot of reasons that add up together that cause people to do, believe, and act out their negativity.
At first, learning that our memories are shit and that we have ideas in our heads that normally can’t be challenged wither they are true or not, and that those type of things are normal and not because a person is bad or made it so on purpose, made me very frustrated. But, the more I learn about how the human brain works the more tolerance I have for people in general.
It wasn’t just this normal in others that upset me, it was also that we have little to no control over much of it which included me as well.
I never liked not having control in my own head. When I was a kid I used to try to remember the bad things so I would stay in touch with reality. It seemed delusional to just remember the good things. But I didn’t know that good or bad, positive or negative, our brains change the memories over time.
Accepting this fact wasn’t pleasant, but once I started accepting it I noticed I became more tolerant of snobs and even prejudice people. I’m not saying I agree with them and I certainly will still stand up for the victims, but I can do so now better since I am coming from a place of true humanity. I’ve taught my children that when they are bullied they need to recognize that the bully has problems, some could be very horrible problems of being abused themselves. But, at the same time, I still encouraged them to stand up for themselves and not let the bully affect them or others. The same can apply to the “intolerant”.
Something else that’s made tolerance difficult for me is when it’s something I used to be. I’ve been brainwashed so I know how difficult it is to come out of it which sometimes gives me less hope for people then more hope. Still, it does me well to remember that as difficult as it is, I’m not the only one like me which means there are others who can come out of such circumstances and I’m to not give up and hide in a corner thinking there’s no hope for humanity.
I still struggle with speaking out, it may not seem like it, but I do. I was not only originally quiet and shy, but I was also not allowed to speak my mind even when I wanted to or was told to. The reality was that I really wasn’t supposed to. Whenever I tried to expose my heart, if it made anyone uncomfortable or uneasy, I was put in my place and silenced. That or it was used as a tool to beat me back into my corner with.
Visual by: Nelly Wat
Although I’ve overcome this, I still have those “voices” in my head telling me I’ll be misunderstood, judged, and so forth.
I have days I am quite bold and just put it out there. Sometimes I rush to put it out there cause I know if I wait a day or maybe even five minutes it will be difficult if not impossible for me to do.
This is my choice to live as an open book. It’s not always what is natural for me. It’s what I’ve found to be my purpose, my way of helping others, my way of helping myself.
Accepting that it’s not normal for everyone to feel the need to understand people has taken me a while to grasp. Not just grasp but also to accept. But getting this concept is important cause it helps me find patience for those who don’t automatically look into other peoples struggles so they can relate and empathize better. There are a lot of people like me, but, there are a lot not like me and it’s not a bad thing, it’s a natural thing. It’s not something those folks are doing or not doing with intention, it’s just the way they are programmed just like I am the way I am programmed. Not that we can’t make adjustments, but we have core programming that will always be a part of us wither good or not so good, wither we chose to improve or not. Yes, there may be exceptions, maybe.
I just learned that this is a symbol of empathy! Pretty cool!
I think I’ll likely always have some issues with it, but not so much as I’ve had in the past.
While people are not robots, we do have a lot of similarities with them wither we like it or not.
Sorry, this ended a little rough. I got really wore out and tired. I’m posting it anyway cause I don’t want to just forget about it.
Lorenakoran's Blog 