I must say I have learned a lot of important lessons in my short life so far. Despite my best efforts, I still have yet to reach that place of enlightenment in which my learning is through and I have achieved the end. Even in the last week, my understanding of an old maxim (never judge a book by its cover) has grown.
You would think someone like me would get it. Someone that has always hoped that others would judge me by the content of my character and not by my outward appearance. Someone that does not want his choice of music to prevent him from connecting the mainstream. Someone that does not want to the fact that he likes sports to alienate him from the alternative set. You would think, over the years, that I would done a better job of waiting to understand who a person is rather than passing judgment on what appears on the surface.
I get reminded of my tendency to judge the book by it's cover from time to time, usually it's in a big way. Back in the spring of 2001 I was hired to be a part of the first ever Conference, Orientation, and Recruitment (COAR) Team at NDSU. Still to this day, I'm not sure how I got on there. I showed up for the group interviews in dickies and a hooded sweatshirt with the gas tank of a lawn mower for my item of personal significance. I think i ranked one spot ahead of the guy who brought his straight jacket and pentagram necklace in the "What the...?" category. But like I said, they hired me.
The first time we got together to meet the whole team, I felt so out of place. Fraternity members, residence life staff, and the newly elected student body president managed to make the team. Along with me, the stuck up alternative kid. I left that first meeting convinced that I needed to quit. I was certain no one would want me on that team. I just didn't fit. They were gonna think I was a loser. And the reality is, before I ever got to know anyone of them, I was the one that was passing judgement on them. I was the elitist, the snob of the group.
Three months later some of my best friends were on that team. I would even date one of the girls for the majority of my college years. Check my facebook and you'll still find some of them on my friends list. I was wrong and it was hard for me to admit. I liked the frat boys. I liked the res lifers. I liked the student body president. Not because they were any of those things, but because of who they were as people.
I am being taught that lesson again right now. I have hung out recently with a person that was at NDSU at the same time I was. My limited knowledge of this person told me that I wouldn't enjoy hanging out with them. But I was wrong. Again, I went into it thinking that they would never like someone like me. But the reality is that I was too busy not liking someone like them. And I was wrong.
So the moral of the story is this... don't judge a book by its cover. Get to know the people around you before you assume that you won't like them (or that they won't like you). It's a lesson you'll learn soon enough.