We All Have Biases

There's this guy who lives around me; I have always seen him as a rough dude — a cultist, some rugged and felonious personality.

So today I went to refill my cooking gas cylinder somewhere around home. After refilling it, the cylinder of course was very heavy that I struggled to carry it alone. With my staggering footsteps, I kept approaching home through this kinda bush path, and at intervals when my hands were feeble, I'd drop the cylinder off my shoulder to pant and regain strength.

Lo and behold, this dude who I earlier talked about was behind me, with jogging steps, he wore ripped denim pants, with a red stripped vintage shirt, a baseball cap, and a sneaker. He wore a straight face, and kept approaching from behind me.

Honestly I was a bit horror-stricken. I thought of bolting into my own race but I held back for a moment and decided to be calm while I maintained my elephant steps.

He reached me and the next thing I heard was:
“Let me help you. Hold this side, and I'll hold the other side..”

Like an inferno fought by firefighters, my fright dwindled, and my heartbeat took it's normal interval.
Honestly I was perplexed. I mean, his unexpected thoughtfulness. I never expected such from the guy I had an image about.

We reached this junction where he was supposed to part and go his path, but he obliged to help me till I got home.

While we carried the cylinder together, we conversed. I got to discover he's a Gospel musician. His views about life were mind boggling and I was so impressed. Honestly, this wasn't what I expected from him. We talked a bit about religion and spirituality, and I discovered he wasn't who I thought he was. He wasn't that bad guy in my mind.

We got to my compound and he left.

I got thinking. This dude who in my mind I already classified as a criminal. Like, I already drew this picture of him with a stainless pistol terrorising folks.

Why exactly?
There was just no reason. Maybe he doesn't dress like me, and his composure don't express my temperament and cultural background, so that difference in sociocultural inclination made me conclude he must be someone bad.

Seriously, sometimes what we do not understand is not bad. Sometimes we judge people with our biases. We look at them through the lens of our sociocultural and religious beliefs.

Maybe she wears anklets and in your place it's widely believed that anklets symbolises that a woman is a hot wife or a lesbian.

Maybe he keeps beard and in your mind men who keep beard are rough and deadly.

Sometimes we see people for who they are not because of preconceived notions. We live in a world where there's much diversity, and it's unhealthy to put everyone in a box and nail them to the cross made by your beliefs and values.

Looks are cultural. Attitudes are cultural.
You wear suits. He wears rag jeans. Doesn't make you more of a gentleman.

We have to outgrow conventional thinking patterns and see everyone as humans, and be fair enough to understand that they don't own the same background as yours, or same culture, or same beliefs, so they won't probably dress, act, or comport themselves as you expect, because your expectations are even based on your own culture and beliefs.

This is why sometimes ladies who wear long gowns with no make up are still very promiscuous, and those wear seeming skimpy clothes are self restrained. I'm not justifying dressing improperly here but always remember that what you call IMPROPER DRESSING is even a product of your culture and reality, and it is relative.

So sometimes treasures, and very valuable people come in looks that your culture calls trashy and irresponsible.

Let's get closer to people before we draw conclusions. Sometimes they are greater or lesser than what we think.

Do we really see people for who they are or for the image in our mind about them?

I think the more open minded we are, the more we see the beauty of people and of the world.