Pride and Prejudice—For Real

If you’re familiar with Jane Austen’s work Pride and Prejudice, you know it’s all about how first impressions can be deceiving and wrong, especially when we make them quickly or with little information. To my surprise, I am having my own Pride and Prejudice experience.

I have been talking recently with someone I knew many years ago. We worked together for several years, and while we were friends as part of a large group of people, we didn’t really “click” with each other, or at least not in my mind. I didn’t have the greatest impression of him at the time. I thought he was stuck up, egotistical and a player. Now that I’ve come to know him better, I realize he was none of those things. In fact, he has systematically obliterated all my first impressions of him. I have come to know what a good and kind person he is, and I have enjoyed getting to know the real person.

It makes me wonder how wrong we can be about people—not just those we first meet, but even those we’ve known awhile, or think we know. I quickly had him pegged, but I didn’t know him at all. In my defense, he didn’t go out of his way at that time to let me get to know him. But still…

How could I be so wrong?

It has humbled me, and made me realize that I like to “peg” people. Not everyone can be so easily “pegged,” nor is that a practice I should be engaging in, since everyone has multiple facets to their personality. If there is one thing I have learned, it’s that people can surprise you. Even those from whom you least expect it.

If anything, you can learn from my experience. The next time you want to put someone in a box, label them, peg them, categorize them or write them off…think twice. It takes time to get to know someone, and even then, you might at first be shown only what the person wants you to see; some people take longer to get to know than others.

Give people a chance and don’t be too quick to rush to judgment. As I’m learning now, quick judgments might make you miss out on a person that is worth getting to know.

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On Divorce, Guilt, and Life Choices

I recently had a conversation with someone who was being made to feel guilty about her decision to leave a bad marriage after many years. She was talking about how her husband changed during the marriage, and how much she has changed for the better since her divorce. And she seemed to be struggling with this person’s perception that she was being selfish in leaving her marriage.

So I told her what my personal beliefs are, that people have the right to grow as individuals, and that sometimes they outgrow their spouse when that person doesn’t grow with them. And while segments of our society seem to think that a person should stay with someone ‘till death do them part no matter how bad it is, I don’t believe that is necessarily what is in a person’s best interest, and may even be unhealthy and harmful, depending on what kind of marriage it has become.

Every person has the right to grow, change, develop, evolve. We are souls on a human journey, and the whole point of being here is to experience different things, learn, and grow. If a person is being held back in their development by someone, that person no longer belongs in their life.

Our periods of greatest spiritual growth are those times when we make tough life decisions and endure difficulties; when we break away; refuse to conform. Our choices may not be popular, but they are ours to make, and each one of us must do what we know is right for ourselves. And while others shouldn’t judge, they will, and they do. Let them. That is their problem, not yours.

As long as you are on the road that will bring you peace and happiness, it doesn’t matter what someone else thinks. Ultimately, if you are comfortable with your decision, then someone else’s discomfort with it is their issue. They need to get on board; you’re already there.

No one has the right to tell another human being how to live their life. We must all do what we feel is right for ourselves. In return, we should not be judging others in how they choose to live their lives. We can help them, we can offer advice, but ultimately, we are each on our own road of discovery.

We should not spend our life experience in misery to make others happy, or because someone else tells us we should. That has a harmful dampening effect on the spirit, and I am quite positive that is not what we are here to experience.

How each of us chooses to live our life is our own choice to make. No one can or should choose our path for us; we must all find our own unique way.

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How Do You Get Past the Past?

I was recently contacted by an old boyfriend out of the blue. Those are the times when you have the opportunity to take an emotional reading of how you’re doing in relation to that person. I’m sorry to say I didn’t fare well.

I thought I was past all that mess. I wasn’t thinking about him, he wasn’t even a blip on my radar. But after he contacted me, I was very upset, because it brought up all the (apparently) unresolved anger I still had inside of me, anger I didn’t know I still had. After telling him to “stuff it” (in a nicer, “high road” kind of way), I realized I need to do something about this anger.

I need to figure out how to forgive him.

It would be much easier if he said he was sorry. He treated me very callously on more than one occasion. But either he isn’t sorry, or he is too obtuse to realize he should be. If he had come bearing an apology, that would have been one thing. If he had come bearing an explanation, that would have been another. But he approached me with nothing but a misguided assumption that we could just pick up either a friendship or more as if nothing had happened and everything was fine. And we can’t. Ever. He burned all his bridges.

Despite this, I realize I still need to forgive him, not because he deserves it, but for myself. I can’t afford to be internalizing this anger, because I know it will only hurt me by showing up as an illness or some other manifestation of dis-ease. And he is not worth that.

But how do I forgive someone who coldheartedly hurt me and doesn’t give a whip? The truth is, I have no idea. I have tried falling back on my standard, “He did the best he could with what he knew and who he was at the time,” but it just isn’t working for me in this case. You just don’t treat someone that badly, especially someone you were supposed to care about.

So while I struggle with this, another issue about the past has arisen in my life. What do you do when you meet someone with a checkered past who is very open about it? I’m all for honesty, and I DO want to know the truth; but I’m also finding that sometimes it’s better not to know. Nothing I have heard has overly surprised me; but it’s still another thing to actually hear it.

I’m talking about things from decades ago, so why should it matter? People change. I have changed. I was no saint in my younger days either, and even a few of my not-so-younger days (though I have been a saint for a while now). I am not casting stones—“judge not, lest ye be judged”—I’m just a little uncomfortable with what I know.

And yet I know that this is something that can be resolved with time. In this case, I know I can get past the past. I have evolved to a point where I know better than to hold someone’s past against them, as I would not want mine held against me. No one should be shut out because of who they were or what they’ve done, if they’ve made the effort to change.

Which brings me back to the first part: “If they’ve made the effort to change.” The old boyfriend has not. And yet I still need to forgive him. The depth of my “upsetness” has unsettled me greatly. I had no idea all those hard feelings were lurking in my psyche.

So the fact that this has happened is actually a good thing. Now that I know these feelings are there, I will work on resolving them. I still don’t know how…but at least I know what I need to work on. And sometimes that in itself is half the battle.

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