Have you ever wondered why someone would do such a horrible thing? We often hear stories with a bias attached to them. We’ll hear things like, “This women stole this little boy’s puppy” and automatically think that woman must be an evil witch for being mean to the little boy. We don’t always listen for others details and hear only one side of the story. The woman could have been the boy’s mom. She could of have taken the puppy away from the boy because he was mistreating it since he was so young. We often don’t examine all of the information.
We like to jump to hasty conclusions. The example of the little boy and woman show cases that there could be more to the story than we think. Just knowing the first version of the story, we make a judgment. Whether we intend to, or not, it’s hard to not allow our own opinions filter our vision. Once we form our first opinions about something, it becomes difficult to be objective.
We often fail to look at the situation from different angles. The story of the boy and the woman from the boy’s perspective makes the woman sound mean. Once we know that the woman is the boy’s mom, we can then look at it through a mom’s perspective. There are at least two sides to this story. We often find out information and judge it from only one perspective. If a family member has gotten arrested, we may jump to the conclusion that they are a bad family member. However, you can’t just assume things, there may be a different side to the story.
Not everyone has the same thought patterns as you. Some people believe that tattoos are normal; others believe that they are distasteful. Some may think it is okay to break the law as long as you know no one else is watching. You may not think that choices like this matter, however they do matter and they add up. What a person does when nobody is watching says a lot about you character. What may be okay for one person, may not be acceptable for someone else.
There are a lot of factors that influence what we consider good and bad. What we may think is horrible, could be a good situation for someone else. We sometimes need to take a step back and examine the situation from multiple perspectives. Trying to understand a situation rather than judge it can open you up to being a more empathic person. Being a more empathetic person can help improve you relationships with your loved ones, especially any who were recently arrested.