I came across these funny commercials for Ameriquest’s “Don’t Judge Too Quickly” campaign. Not only did they make me laugh, but these situations reminded me of how we all tend to judge based on what we see in front of us. Sometimes we’re right. Sometimes we’re wrong. How often have we considered the consequences of our judgments?
I have a friend, who back in grade school, was shooting hoops with his friends in the gym after school. After the group of kids left the gym, the janitor found a note a kid had written, saying how he hated a teacher and was going to kill her. This note was brought to the principal, who decided my friend wrote the note. The principal’s reasoning? He was a kid who looked like he would do something violent, plus he was one of the kids in the gym before then note was found. True, my friend had that teacher and, like many other students, disliked her. But he was not in the least bit violent, nor was he dumb enough to write a note about it. Alas, life isn’t a fairy tale. No one came to his aid, and they refused his requests to prove that the handwriting wasn’t his. In the end, he was expelled.
When my friend was sent home, his dad didn’t even ask if he had really written the note or planned to kill the teacher. He just assumed he was guilty as charged. He expressed his severe disappointment in his son and gave him a hearty beating. Afterwards, my friend was home-schooled. Soon, he lost his motivation to learn, was unable to catch up to the coursework, and felt a greater distance grow between him and his old friends. His dad told him to stop wasting his time on books and make better use of his time by working. So he did. Later on, when he applied to a new school, no one would accept a kid with “violent, intended to kill teacher” written in bold red marker all over his records.
So many doors were closed to him as a result of the principal’s decision. No one gave him a chance. And why should they? They thought he was violent, because of the way he looked. And really, their swift judgments could’ve made him into a violent, bitter, society-hating man. But he never had that in his nature. So he turned out to be a caring, giving individual who never finished high school, never got to experience the activities like prom or homecoming, never felt the accomplishment of finishing a big school project, never had a yearbook for his friends to sign.
But he also vowed never to judge someone without first getting the facts. As a victim of serious injustice, I would say he grew into a great man. Lesser men have been made out of better circumstances. It really goes to prove, don’t judge so quickly.
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