It’s so easy to look at another person and assume they are exactly who they want to be.
We assume every action is a true declaration of their personality, as if they’re presenting themselves exactly as the world wants to see them. That they like themselves exactly how they are, and that every flaw and mistake they make was simply just an error in their judgment.
But when it comes to ourselves, we have our backstories and personal reasonings to justify our mistakes.
I don’t know about you, but I can definitely admit that I have my fair share of problems. Many of which I’m aware of, but likely even more than I’m even able to see. While I’m actively trying to improve myself, I have some personal tendencies that I can see but frustratingly enough, I can’t seem to shake.
But in my head, I can justify most of these. I can attribute a negative attitude to the stressful day at work, but why is it just so easy to blame others for their flaws?
A recent topic of debate in one of my religion courses posed the question of, “If ‘God’ created everything, then why do some people have faith while others don’t?”
A girl in my class explained that, “‘God’ chooses certain people to give the gift of faith and those are his chosen people.” Another student responded with the idea that, “Isn’t that just ‘God’ playing favorites?”
After further exploration, I came to the conclusion that the idea of ‘free will’ and ‘personality’ don’t necessarily coincide.
An inspirational quote I hear referenced often is, “You are not what happens to you, you are how you respond to those situations.” While I can agree with this to a certain degree, I also have to wonder what/who decided what each person would be equipped with in terms of personality. Some are gifted with patience and understanding, while others have been plagued by anxiety and anger.
It hardly seems fair, or even a matter of ‘free will’, when our personality traits and ability to handle situations weren’t even our choices in the first place.
Imagine each person is supplied with a customized set of tools. We couldn’t possibly assume that each person is equally capable of building a house when one person has a hammer, while another has a spoon. But rightly so, the spoon owner would be much more successful at eating a bowl of soup.
So who am I to scrutinize anybody? I would only ever want someone to give me the benefit of the doubt, so why wouldn’t I do the same?
We’re all just doing the best we can with what we were assigned, and this should be taken into account before we unfairly attribute a person's negligence to their own decision .
