I just finished editing a paper on Capital Punishment vs. Life Without Parole. It was heavy. I really thoroughly researched the work instead of just editing it technically. I wanted to know where I stood on the issue. I wanted to know what I believed, even though I was just the editor on the project.

This article isn’t about Capital Punishment though. This is about something that stirred in my heart while I was reading, writing, and digging into something that Capital Punishment involved – a decision made by a human, to determine the worthiness of another human.

I’m guilty of doing that, most often subconsciously, but not always. Sometimes I know I’m doing it. I know that in my mind I am judging another person and determining what I think they deserve… from fate, from life, from work; from me. I’m not sure what I tend to look for in the worth of a person, maybe it’s work ethic or maybe it’s ambition or maybe it’s their family or job or their looks or their wit. I’m not really sure. But I know that there are times I want to push someone aside, or cut them out of my world, because it’s convenient for me. Or, they just aren’t worth my time and attention.

I’m writing this because I’m going to be honest with you, but in being honest, I also hate that I just wrote that. I hate that unintentional, almost automatic, judgment. I hate that I looked at that woman with the tan skin, platinum blond hair, and dramatic makeup and decided that she would be too much for my circle; I couldn’t be friends with her. She wouldn’t be real and honest and have depth… that’s what I thought. Superficial. I was a human deciding the value of another person.

That wasn’t fair to her, and it wasn’t fair to me. It’s so achingly easy to label a person. The way he talks or the way she laughs or the car that mommy and daddy gave him or how lazy they are or how much they spend… whatever. We label, and we make assumptions, and we decide what someone is worth, and what we think we have to give.

But you know what? You have no right to decide a person’s worth. I have no right to decide a person’s worth. I have no right to say someone is going to be whatever it is that history and past experiences whisper to me that they’ll be. Of course, not all personalities are going to mesh and work together, and I’m not going to be best friends with every person I meet along the way in life, and that’s totally okay. But it’s not because they aren’t worth my friendship or my words or my time.

There is so, so much beauty in a person’s story. In what we seek when we’re willing to go past the surface that we so often get stuck mucking through. I’m sitting at a coffee shop and I’m wondering what that guy over in the corner is doing here, and that couple having a serious conversation in the corner, and the old man who always only – as I just learned – orders black coffee, because everything else on the menu is fancy schmancy syrupy juice. That’s what he called it. I love him for saying that, even though I’m admittedly into those syrupy, creamy, not-really-coffee concoctions.

But when I sit here and look at these people, I wonder what happened in their lives that put them here, in this exact spot, with that drink in their hand, and that person or that notebook or that computer. What story does their life tell? I want to ask questions. I want to sit down with strangers and hear stories and learn words and experiences and see pictures. I want to listen to them so I can understand them, instead of listen so I can talk.

And judgment, labels, assumptions… they hinder that. They throw up sky high walls between us, creating barriers and crafting fear where there should be no fear. We become afraid of each other, intimidated by each other; we exist at the mercy of each other’s words and eyes. But what if we tried to understand each other?

I think it would be a powerful thing if we learn to know each other. If we learn what hurts and what heals; if we pay attention; if we stop tearing each other down with our quick judgment and easy-to-hide-inside boxes.

What if we stripped people of labels and let them show us who they are instead?