I think people become fans of sports teams because we need something to identify with other than ourselves. We want our moods and happiness and excitement to be based off of something beyond our own circumstances. We can’t make life what we want it to be so we blame our TV shows, sports teams, and friends.
It’s far easier to put the responsibility on something we have no control over than ourselves. We can’t change things around us, but we can change ourselves and that takes courage.
I am consistently astounded by the friendliness of people I don’t know. Today, I have pinpointed why a smile from a stranger can make my day when nothing else can.
That person I passed on the sidewalk had no obligation to smile when they saw me. I wasn’t making awkward eye contact, I didn’t initiate the smile, and they didn’t feel a need to greet me because I’m their lab partner’s sister’s roommate’s neighbor. We were strangers until the smile.
I am consistently delighted by Sundays. Some of my friends have dedicated themselves to doing no work on Sundays in honor of the Lord’s day, and I respect them very much for it. For me, Sunday is a wonderful day to not have the pressure of five meetings in the afternoon and two exams and one quiz during the day. It is a wonderful day to start with church and allow myself to be by myself or with others or spend a few minutes doing nothing or getting work done so I can thrive and not just survive during the next week. Rest is highly underrated. I always insist on wearing a sweater on Sundays.
Sweaters mean comfort and peace and contentment. Sundays are a good reminder of what every day should contain.
What happens to all of our unspoken thoughts? Whenever I’m in group conversations I watch people’s faces. Sometimes I see their eyes light up, their lips part involuntarily, an idea about to release……but the moment passes and the conversation dominator rushes along to their next story and there is one more thought never to be heard. Do all these unheard wishes and opinions simply die? Or do they stay inside us, begging to be released but never given the opportunity?
Personally, I write them down and feel like I’m being heard, that I am understood. Yet I begin to doubt. I feel like I am sending imaginary letters to people through the thoughts in my head but I rarely actually say the things I would like to. Maybe I never told that friend how much I appreciated them. I never shared that once, their words saved me. What would my life look like if I didn’t avoid confrontation or awkward situations? What friendships would have been deepened and which would have disappeared?
Sometimes we don’t have the address to mail these thoughts to. How can I thank the stranger whose smile and random compliment made my day? How can I tell a friend that I’m glad they were in my life when we haven’t talked in years?
I can’t ever make up for all the words I’ve left unspoken.
I am the type of person who cannot be within eyesight of a sign, posting, notice, billboard, book, graphitti, pamphlet without reading it. I will read the same sign over and over just because it is there. So, when riding in the car, I pay attention to what’s on the other side of the tinted glass.
We were just outside of Pittsburg and I saw a billboard that had a picture of a diamond being held by a pair of tweezers. I looked away for a second and on a closer look, I realized that I had mistaken what was truly a piece of round sushi and chopsticks for exquisite jewelry. An honest and harmless mistake.
While misidentifying images may be relatively harmless (with the minor exception of street signs while driving), when we begin to categorize and identify people based on first impressions we run serious risks.
It might have been said that first impressions are important. I’d like to add that they are wrong 95% of the time. If I can’t tell a roll of sushi apart from a diamond, then I surely can’t accurately assess someone within five minutes of knowing them. I shouldn’t be assessing them at all. Just enjoying getting to know another story and friend. Yet it is far too easy to fall into a faulty first impression judgement.
I mislabeled the billboard advertisement because I looked at it too quickly. You can’t possibly expect to know someone after a brief meeting, especially depending on the circumstance and opportunity for true conversation. I also got my diamonds and sushi confused because I had seen a billboard with tweezers and a diamond before. I wasn’t expecting to see sushi, so I fit it into a mold that I already knew.
How many times do you meet someone and say, “You are just like my friend so and so!” Or at least think it. Except they aren’t. Because they can’t be. We are who we are, nothing more and nothing less. Squeezing people into cold metal molds is great if you want a bunch of friends that are exactly who you think they should be but nothing like who they really are.
I think it’s time to get our eyes checked.
Chloe J Sayers 