Tag: humanity

Looks Can Be Deceiving

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I want to start this blog with a little activity / homework / experiment, whatever you want to call it, for you. When you’re out on the street, somewhere, I want you to look at a person and I want you to judge them by how they look. Think of the nastiest, bitchiest and rudest comments you possibly can, all because of how that person looks. Like “Oh. Look at her face. So snooty. I bet she’s an effing.. something.” Any name calling, any amount of judgement you can possibly pass about that person.

Now I want you to walk up to them and I want you to shove all that judgement away and put on a sweet voice and as genuine a smile as you can and tell them, “Hey. I’m sorry if I’m intruding. I was just standing there and I constantly kept feeling like you’re going through something rough. You don’t have to tell me what it is. I don’t have to know. I just felt the need to tell you that whatever it is, it’s going to be ok. I promise, you’ll figure it out. Just remember to smile.” Right before you walk away, I want you to take one look at that person’s face.

I assure you that almost always, the person won’t say, “No. I’m fantastic.” They might not open up to you, but their faces will have a look of surprise and gratefulness. Because they needed to hear that. Because they are going through something rough. They just don’t wear it on their faces all the time and you just gave them hope when they needed it the most.

You can go on and try this with as many people as you want because every one of us has a story to tell. A sad, depressing story. A life altering story. We might not look like we do, we might not act like we do, but you know it’s there. In your life, in mine and similarly in others’.

Have you heard of Humans of New York? It is a page run by a man named Brandon. He walks around the streets of New York taking pictures of people and learning a little about them. It’s by far one of my favorite social media pages. In his page, recently, there was a picture of a man with a cut on his hand. I, of course, judged him for cutting himself like that. What cowardly behavior. If you or someone you know is into hurting themselves, please stop. Yourself and them. Nothing comes out of hurting yourself. It is stupid, it is painful and in my very very honest opinion, selfish because you didn’t stop to think how this affects the people who love you. You only care about yourself when you’re inflicting pain on yourself and that is not something to pity. That is something to despise.

I want you to think about all the times you’ve done this. All the times you’ve judged a person by the way they look, by what you see on them rather than in them. I want you to take a moment and think if those judgements might actually be true. If that person is truly what you thought they were. Do you actually believe your judgements were right?

“There’s a story behind every person. There’s a reason why they’re the way they are. They aren’t just like that because they want to. Something in the past created them and sometimes it’s impossible to fix them. But that’s not your problem. And it’s definitely not your place to judge.”

One of the main things I like about Humans of New York are the quotes next to the pictures that show you a part of the person you might not normally see or get to know. The person inside the looks and the clothes and the cuts. After I was done judging the man, I read what he said:

“I had forty acres and a new home out in California. I was working as a stone mason. I could bring in $6000 cash some weeks. Then I was walking home one night and someone tried to kill me. I got brain damage. I lost my sense of smell, my sense of taste, most of my hearing, and now I can barely stand without getting dizzy. I must have fallen and cracked my head open thirty times since then. Everything I knew has been washed out into the water. I’ve tried to commit suicide several times.”

That changes everything, doesn’t it? I cannot begin to explain how many times since then I’ve felt sorry. How many times I’ve wished I could walk up to that man and apologize for judging him without knowing him. Ever since, I’ve tried my best to stop myself from doing that. Every time I find myself judging someone for the way they look, I stop myself and instead I smile at them. For all you know, that one time they smile back at you, may be the only smile they give out all day long. Why shouldn’t you be the one that does that for them?!

Because.. think about it. Someone out there is judging you too. They’re looking at you and passing rude comments in their head or to the person next to them. Do you want that? Do you want to hear the horrible things they think about you without knowing you at all? Do you think it’s right that they do that? And if it’s wrong when they do it, how is it right when you do it?

Now, I’m not expecting you to change everything today. We’re humans. We’re made this way and it’s difficult to change. But you have to start somewhere.

So, I’ll take the first step. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the crticism, I’m sorry for all the hatred and most importantly,

I am incredibly sorry for passing judgements instead of extending love. You deserve better than that.

With all my love,

To You.

 

Understanding the Differences

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In a world of over-achievers, I’m a mediocre. I live my life in a way that I see fit and not everyone understands or approves of it. But that’s every one of us, isn’t it?!

My brother has a book coming out called Ketchup & Curry. As he explained to me the concept of the book, I started thinking – We live in a world that is unbelievably diverse. What I saw in Los Angeles,  I can never imagine seeing in my city and it works the other way around as well. So what happens when one of us decides to go and live in a place that is filled with people who couldn’t be more different than you are?! How do you live in a foreign country surrounded by people who are unlike you and still live peacefully and happily?

I’ve travelled quite a bit. My passion is to learn and understand different cultures and someday, write about it all. I need to be the most nonjudgmental human being on the planet to pursue a career out of that. Like I’ve mentioned before, my parents raised me saying “thou shall not chill with a man who is not your brother, father, family or betrothed.” When I first moved to a foreign country, the first couple I saw making out on the street were both women. Here’s the culture shock – you don’t kiss people in public. If you’re older than 20, your own father will flinch when you try to kiss his cheek in public. Then comes “OMG ! THAT’S TWO WOMEN !” But I thought that was the most beautiful thing. The freedom to be who they are and not having to hide. I lived there for about four months. When I left, I no longer had the need to judge people for the choices they make out of love. That was the first thing most people didn’t understand.

When I started university, my classes were only a few hours a day. I had plenty of free time on my hands and I spent three quarters of them on YouTube. Have you ever been so bored that you started out with a music video but a few hours later, found yourself in that weird part of youtube? That happened to me. I was watching Paradise by Coldplay and somehow ended up watching videos of people with Gender Identity Disorder and videos of Transgenders and their everyday struggles. In my city, the only kinds of transgenders I’d encountered were the ones who usually come and ask for money. When you say no, they try to bully you into giving them money or whatever it is that you have. So whenever I saw them, I’d get scared and try to walk away. But those videos forever changed my idea of them. I never realized how incredibly nice they can be if you just understand them and accept them. You know when you’re the black sheep in the family and everyone’s giving you the cold shoulder and you just look at them thinking “My friends understand. Why can’t you? Come on ! A little acceptance would be nice!” Imagine living life like that every day. But you’re not just asking your family. You’re asking the entire human race (with the exclusion of a few people here and there) to understand you and accept you. I might not be their best friend, but I stopped running away. I chose to stop and give them an answer when they asked me something. Sure there are some of them that are thieves and cheaters. Tell me a time when a man or woman you trusted wasn’t a thief or a cheater? We’re all human beings and the least we can do is treat each other the way we’d like to be treated. In a society that already lived like that, I learnt to accept them and live in peace. That’s the second thing most people don’t understand.

I still meet people who are completely different from who I am. I meet people who make choices I can never imagine making for myself. “She had six boyfriends in the past” is a statement that is approved in one culture while looked down on in another. Judging the people who disapprove of it isn’t going to make my life any better. But that doesn’t mean I have to change who I am. Every person is entitled to their own opinions. I can’t control my thoughts about things. Similarly, the other person’s thoughts are his own.

I can be cheesy here and say “Please let us love one another.” But that’s a statement that won’t ever work. We can’t all love everything. So let me tell you what I’ve learnt in my life – “Yes, we’re all different. We may not all have the ability to accept our differences and love each other. But the least we can do is to keep the hate to ourselves. Stop the stupid fights on comment sections. Stop comparing. Stop name calling. You do your thing and let them do theirs. If you don’t like something, walk away. It is not your place or in your right to judge someone who likes it. You can go ahead and live your life the way you want to. But the next person’s life is theirs. It’s their choices. It’s their interests and if they screw up, it’s their consequences. Unless you’re asked, don’t give your opinions. It’s as simple as that. Remember, who you are is insignificant when you’re gone. It’s the words you say and the actions you do that you leave behind..”

In a world of over-achievers, I’m a mediocre. I live my life in a way that I see fit and not everyone understands or approves of it. But nobody gets to judge it. Nobody but me.

And that’s the only thing I wish people would understand.

The People Around You

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When we’re walking on the streets, wrapped up in our thoughts, we forget that there’s a world that’s buzzing with life around us.. Have you ever stopped and looked at someone and wondered? Have you ever looked at a teenager and wondered what kind of home they go back to? Have you ever stopped and stared at a person in a suit and wondered what kind of pathetic boss they work for? Have you ever smiled at a kid that is enjoying whatever little time he/she has left as an innocent before the big bad world corrupts their brain? Do you ever take a moment of your journey to look at someone’s life other than yours? I did once and it changed every journey I ever took from that day on..

It was a regular day back from university to my apartment and I was so wrapped up with music and social networking that I almost didn’t notice.. You know how we have friends? We laugh, we fight, we giggle, we tease and we make the lamest jokes in the world? I saw a gang of seven people, in an MRT, do that.. through sign language. I might not have understood everything they signed, but I understood that laughter, I understood what it meant when one of those guys shook his head and closed his eyes while laughing uncontrollably.. I looked around me and saw every person around them stare at them in awe and they didn’t even know about it.. I will never forget the tiny tear a woman wiped from her eyes as she looked at these people who have so much more to whine about than you and I do, but yet they were so happy, so filled with joy..

Somehow, since then, I always look around, I always notice.. Those old aunties who laughed so much they had tears coming from their eyes, that cute couple that would not stop staring into each other’s eyes so so lovingly that it started to annoy the shit out of me, that little kid that dangled her legs because her feet wouldn’t touch the ground, that random kid who smiled at me for no reason when standing in line at Starbucks, that girl at the market that always gives me and my mum some extra vegetables out of kindness, that mother who was texting her husband about their divorce while still cooing at her daughter in the pink tutu, the mentally ill homeless guy that wandered near my old house and always had a smile to give, that old woman selling bananas who probably went back to a small house with barely any food to eat and yet asks you how you’re doing..

Take a moment, look around you.. Look at every life around you.. At all the happiness around you.. At all the people that are probably in way more shit than you’re in right now.. And give them a smile, just because.

For all you know, that’s probably the best thing that happened to them all day..