People watching people watching people......

I find people fascinating.  I like watching people and I find their behaviours intriguing.  The way they act together, their personal styles, their views, their dreams, their fears, their mannerisms and their idiosyncrasies.....fascinating! 

Something that always intrigues me is the way people interact and react to each other.  Some people seem to spend a lot of time trying to impress people they hardly know, and yet spend so little time and effort on those that really matter.  Family and true friends get pushed to the background as bosses and workmates gobble up precious time and priorities.  And for what?  What is really being accomplished?  Yes, people need to work to earn a living to help keep themselves and their families fed, warm and housed.  But it is a fine line between working to live, and living to work.  And after a few years you may move on and never speak to or see those people again and yet your family and friends are still waiting...in the wings...ready for their cues.  Hardly seems fair.  So much precious time wasted.  So many opportunities lost.

And how many times have you put a lot of thought and effort into something for someone, only to be disappointed in their reaction.  Yet sometimes the smallest gesture to someone else can bring the biggest, heart warming, unexpected reaction.   So who are we trying to impress.....and why?  Are we trying to impress someone so we feel accepted, so we feel acknowledged, so we have our five minutes of fame...or is it ourselves we are trying to impress?  All seem shallow.  If we feel we have to impress anybody, then I have to ask, what are we lacking in ourselves that we feel we have to go out of our way to be accepted by others?  Is it pride? Is it confidence? Is it vanity?  Is it fear?  Something I do know is that those unexpected reactions, those rare moments of pure gratefulness, are the best.  No hidden agenda, no expectations, no malice...just thankfulness.

And why do some people seem to instantly make us bristle while with others we feel an instant connection, like we have known each other forever and yet barely a few sentences have passed?  What transpires between two people that is invisible and yet forms an instant and lasting impression?  So much so that you instantly like someone, or hate them.  And how many times have you been wrong?  You start with an impression of someone, perhaps disliking them only to find that months or years later, they really weren’t the person you thought they were, in fact they are totally opposite.  People you thought were idiots or write offs, become dear friends.....people you liked from the first time you met, end up betraying you in one way or another.

The human psyche is an amazing in depth study which changes from one person to another....and is what makes each of us all so unique and individual.  We are all different and I don’t mean logistically or culturally.  If you took an x-ray of everyone in the world they would all look the same on the inside, but if you could take an x-ray of their psyche, it would be a very different picture.   We are all the same model, just with different controls.  It is what makes us...us.   We are exceptional, each and every one of us.  Wouldn’t life be boring if we were all wired the same?   And I can guarantee that everyone, every now and again, has a problem with one or two little wires coming loose.   But it’s how we cope with the re-wiring and repairs that really matter in the end and what continues to make us learn and grow and be our own unique self.

Acceptance of our true self is the duct tape of the emotional world...it fixes everything.