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FOOD
FOR THOUGHT
Editorials by Robert Kirwan |
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| Never
Expect A Soft Landing When You Jump to Conclusions… |
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Have
you ever found yourself in a situation where you jumped to a conclusion
about someone, only to find out later that you were wrong? Embarrassing,
isn’t it? Read the following story and see if you have ever found
yourself in a similar situation:
One night there was a
woman at the airport who had to wait for several hours before
catching her next flight. While she waited she bought a book and a
bag of cookies to eat to help her spend the time. She looked for a place
to sit and waited.
She was deep into her
book, when suddenly she realized that there was a young man sitting
next to her who was stretching his hand, with no concern whatsoever,
and taking cookies from the bag which was lying between them. He started
to eat them one by one. Not wanting to make a fuss about it she
decided to ignore him.
The woman, slightly
bothered, began to eat the cookies and watched the clock, while the
young and shameless cookie thief was also finishing them. The woman
started to get really angry at this point and thought "If I
wasn't such a good and educated person, I would have given this
daring man a black eye by now."
And so it continued.
Every time she ate a cookie, he had one too. The dialogue between
their eyes continued and when only one biscuit was left, she wondered what
he was going to do. Softly and with a nervous smile, the young man grabbed
the last cookie and broke it in two. He offered one half to the woman
while he ate the other half. Briskly she took the cookie and thought,
"What an insolent man! How uneducated! He didn't even thank
me!"
She had never met
anybody so bold and heaved a sigh of relief when her flight was
announced. She grabbed her bags and went towards the boarding gate
refusing to look back to where that insolent thief was seated.
After boarding the
plane and and being nicely seated, she looked for her book which was
nearly finished by now. While looking into her bag she was totally
surprised to find her nearly full package of cookies.
"If my cookies are
here", she thought feeling terribly, "those others were his
and he was sharing them with me." Too late to apologize to the
young man, she realized with pain, that it was her who had been
insolent, uneducated and a thief, and not him.
How many times in our
own lives, have we been absolutely, positively certain that we were right
about something, only to discover later that it wasn’t true? How often
have we accused someone else of taking our keys, breaking a dish, losing
an item, or moving something, only to discover that we were actually the
guilty one and had a momentarily lapse of memory?
How many times have we
found ourselves in a situation similar to the lady in the story, where we
have judged another person unfairly because of some misinformation or
because we have relied upon the opinion of others.
That is why we should
always think twice before we judge others.
Don’t just jump to conclusions unless you are absolutely positive
that there is no way you could be mistaken. It is very humiliating to have
to admit that you have wrongly accused another individual, especially when
you are the guilty party. Worse, when you are in the process of accusing
that person, you sometimes say things that will never be forgotten and
which will forever damage your future relationship.
Sometimes it is hard to forgive and forget.
So let's always give
others the benefit of the doubt before we think badly of them. And
definitely give others the benefit of the doubt before we “say”
anything about them. It is always better to be silent, and keep your
judgments and opinions to yourself, just in case you discover the truth
later on.
Have a good week!
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