This present species of human are the know-it-all kind, permit me to use “Homo Sabi”, we too dey form sabi (apology to my non-Nigerian readers), we never admit ignorance even when we obviously don’t have the slightest idea of what the topic or situation or someone is all about. That’s why we saw messages like this;Â “RIP Nelson Mandela, Your I have a dream speech was amazing” when Nelson Mandela died.
Please, what is wrong with admitting ignorance or seeking knowledge and exposure? No man is an island of knowledge, we learn every day and the first stage to gaining wisdom is admitting your lack of it.
This leads me to what I want to address with this post, and I will call it the “People Oversabilty”. Most of the times we conclude knowing all about someone most especially their personality, way before you meet them. We have our own “xrayed” outcome, well-analyzed view of their likes, dislikes, mannerism, but mostly their personalities, leading to making our personal conclusion of who they are and what they can or can’t do.
One of my blog readers once said my life must be perfect judging from my write-ups, but I definitely can’t claim perfection, like I was a big victim of this “People Oversabilty” and it has at different times almost cost me the most important persons in my life at the moment.
Read a friends experience also, but here I happen to be at the receiving end; the victim.
“It was hectic that day as I saw Tolu and am like “we are in the same department in school, so let me just say hi for hi sake”. I went to camp (NYSC) frustrated and I just wanted it to be over with, and as if that wasn’t enough, I had an accident on my way to camp, so you can just imagine the position that I was in.
Going straight to the point, its not a good thing to judge someone from afar and I do that a lot but my encounter with Tolu changed everything.
My perception of Tolu during our school days was like those rigid folks, “just there guys”, nothing to look forward to meeting them. I felt he was just one of those people that don’t engage in other things and is just boring. I met him and that was it. We talked and we were flowing and am like is this Tolu or someone else….Believe me, it wasn’t a cure for boredom, trust me. But it is really not good to judge someone without knowing the person. You won’t know what you are throwing away with your eyes widely opened.”
I personally feel the least you owe everybody is a chance to prove themselves. What will it hurt you to give them a benefit of doubt to prove themselves before drawing your conclusion. Worse still is the people whose conclusion of others is based on someone else’s judgment, how sad if the other person is bent on creating enmity between you both, like numerous stories of blackmail that I have heard, one person telling her friend’s boyfriend a well fabricated cooked up story of how the so-called girlfriend is a flirt and has slept with all the guys on her NYSC orientation camp, just as to get him from her, God bless his stupid head and shallow heart if he swallows it raw without verifying.
My advice: Don’t draw your conclusion until after you have carried out your test on the parameters based on the hypothesis, sounds scientific 😀 . All I am saying is that you give everybody the chance to prove themselves, either as the worst demon or best angel, because it is never written on their face neither is it seen on the surface of a persons personality. And peoples opinion can’t as well be trusted, they are as shallow and assupmtious as you are. Humans are better at keeping their true identity than chameleons, we have all done that at a time or the other.
Why is this important, you might be losing your wife, business partner, helper…right under your nose. Be wise!
Thank you for reading, I’m really waiting to see your comments, and please kindly share with your social network. It might help someone.
Nyc one tolu… Really dats true. Judgin sm1 b4 havin d oppurtunity to meet dem. God bless u real gud.
Amen, thanks Tito 🙂
I totally relate with this post… I used to be like that too…’profiling’ I called it…my personal little game…till experiences taught me otherwise.
Now, I do my best to just kick back, hold no assumptions and let the other person show who they are…it’s a far better way to live I tell you.
Thanks for sharing Sir!
Profiling…Lool…funny how we have our defense on why it’s good to just “profile”, thank you sir IK for sharing your thought too, I’m grateful
Beautiful piece!!!
Thank you 🙂
truetalk, fact, beautiful
Yes indeed. So excited to see your comment, I am grateful
Very humourous, but yet very instructive. God bless you sir!
Amen 😀 thank you sir
Nice write up Tolu, I believe also that our culture promotes the bias that strangers are bad people and shld be treated as such. This can be a silent factor that makes us believe a bad report about a person readily without necessarily verifying it.
You very right Dr Toba, but if our generation will be any different from our ancestors, we have to do things differently. Thank you so much for the comment.
Haha Tolu you are revolving nah…The persons guess may have been correct if it was in 100 level…?? #justkidding
Hahahaha…nice one Mercy, but was I uptight in 100L? Okay…u were kidding 😀
Loooooooool! Amazing write up! I like the title. And about the post, God is helping me with that :’)
😀 Thank God 🙂
True talk bro…lol @homo_sabi
Hehe… 😀
Haaha so Tolu who was d person + nice post.
Haha so Tolu who is the person…… Nice post.
Lool…Thanks Solomon
This post don tey and I just dey see am!
It just describes exactly my thoughts of the not so far past. I have been a victim of this like mad!!! I used to make others victims too but I realised that it had to come to and end and it has been that way for a long time now. Thank God.
People that don’t know me just say this guy must be a very proud boy, wetin I get? Apart from Jesus who’s the reason for my esteem now. Lol. I get feedback from mutual friends who tell such people that if they get to know me, they’ll change their thinking about me.
I’m not being cocky. :p I have a friend, very good friend who after we got so close said to me, ‘I thought you were a bad boy oo. Like you play gurls and all. You didn’t seem like the God-lover to me.’ That was the first impression of me she got when we met. As it turns out now, I’m her main confidant and I just wonder if she just halted our relationship from that very first minute, that’s how we’ll have missed a lot being friends.
I just wish a lot of people can know they just need to stop because as Tolu has said, they would miss a lot of important people that would be destiny helpers. Thanks Tolu for re-posting the link again. God bless! 🙂
Hmmm… reading this post was lyk reading it for d firsr tym. I was suprised to find out dat i commented bout 2yrs ago. The post is still very refreshing. A good reminder. Dont judge from afar. Thanks alot Tolu. More grace
This isn’t just a nice write up,it’s actually a wonderful lesson, as .. Thanks
So Glad to know this write up had a lesson worth sharing 🙂