Pet peeves. Over the years, my pet peeves have evolved, naturally with age. From growing peeved at my brother taking my toys to road-raging at drivers who refuse to use their blinkers, there are things that bother me, just like everyone has things that bother them.

But lately, I've noticed a pet peeve that really bugs me: when people who don't even know me judge me and create a fake persona of me without knowing my real story. Also, people who do this to other people. What's the point of that? How can you decide you don't like someone simply because of the way they look or from what you heard through the grapevine?

And I'm not here to sit on my high horse and preach to the choir how I've never once in my life judged someone based on what I had heard or what they had looked like. I'm only human, after all. But the human experience is all about learning. It's about making mistakes, misjudgments, and learning from them so that you can better yourself and inspire others to do the same.

So when I heard people had passed judgments on me and had placed me--a human of complexity, with a deep history--in a confined box and had labeled me without knowing me or my story, I felt stuck. Who are you to decide who I am without actually knowing me or what I've been through?

And of course, that's when it hit me: that I've been guilty of this, too. That I have placed others who I do not truly know in a box that they do not belong in. Humans belong in millions of boxes, with stories so vast, they are nearly impossible to uncover in a lifetime. But shouldn't we try? Shouldn't we try to get to know people as well as we can before placing them into boxes?

So here's to getting to know people and their stories first before deciding who they are. You can't judge a book by its cover, just like you can't judge a person based on appearances and gossip.