Road 3: Time to clean your Glasses

A couple of months back I was at this party. Perfectly sober, for those of you who think I wasn't. I was standing with two of my friends when this girl came to us and shared greetings with the two of them. I introduced myself and extended my hand for a handshake. She gave me a very weird look, shook hands and left. I really didn't understand if I had done anything wrong. Anyway, months went by and now that girl is a great friend. A couple of days back we started talking about the time when we first met. She told me how at most parties she would be introduced to guys who would always end up hitting on her. Eventually she stopped interacting with new guys and limited herself to her friend group. So when I was forward enough to introduce myself to her she thought to herself that here's another guy who is going to start hitting on her. So that justified her weird expression before she left.

But now that we are friends she remains totally convinced that even if she spoke to me that night I wouldn't have tried hitting on her.

Although this was a very small incident. Nothing major. But it was enough to get me to Road 3 :)

A man looks at his office window and thinks its too dirty. He gets a handyman to clean it but nothing seems to work on the window. A few hours later he takes off his own glasses, cleans them and puts them back on only to find out that his office window is spotlessly clean.

Yes friends, its time to clean your glasses. The glasses with which you see the world.

The bad part is that our brain is already trained to judge a person by the very first look of him. Even before we talk to a person our super genius brain boasts that it already knows he is not a nice guy. The point is that we should not judge a person before we know him/her well enough. Its unfair because not only do we form a bad impression about him in our minds (for no reason at all) but we also spread it around while talking to our friends.

Lets try this experiment: 

Imagine a situation when one day when you enter your class and you see a new guy sitting all alone in the front bench. You go and sit next to him and try to be friendly, but he totally ignores you. Its as if your words are not even reaching his ears. You tell yourself and everyone around you that he is a weird guy. It will not be a surprise if soon enough everyone in class starts making fun of him and bully that guy, right?

As you read the above lines your brain has already made a mental picture of this new guy in class. That is how fast our brain is.

Now, just add one fact to this entire story and see how your brain reacts to it. You will know exactly what i'm talking about.

Imagine that you suddenly come to know that this new guy is behaving so strangely because he lost his mother a week back.

Do you see the change in your thoughts? How his picture in your brain changes in a fraction of a second. You are now actually feeling guilty about having formed a bad impression about him, right?. Congratulations! Your glasses just got cleaned.

That's Road 3 for you.

Never form a bad impression about people even before you get to know them. Give them a fair chance. The dirt you see on the window outside might actually be on your own glasses.

 If Road 3 got you thinking leave your comments below and let me know. Would love to hear from you.