Who is this???? Part 2.
In part 1 we talked about people who are wearing masks. They pretend to be A, but are really B.
But if you take the time together to find out who they really are, great conversations will emerge, conversations that are healing and give a lot of space to solve problems. Love it! However, this takes time and energy on both sides, and you must be willing to make that investment together.
This time, we ask the same question: when you meet someone, who is that person really? Sometimes they wear masks and the both of you have to work on that, but it can also be a different sort of ballgame…
Maybe you think they are A… but in reality they are C. In other words, they are not wearing a mask at all, but you are wearing sunglasses. Oops….
How does that work? An example: suppose you meet a homeless person. Stinks, dirty guy, heavy on alcohol, doesn’t have things well organized, no job, no chance. At least… that’s your image…
You think he’s A… because you wear sunglasses. Yes, it stinks, but is he also figuratively dirty and does he really have no chance? We immediately labeled that homeless person as A, but if you do start a conversation with him… it turns out that he became ill in the past, lost the company he owned, and his wife left him because she didn’t like him for who he is but “loved” him for his money (which suddenly wasn’t there anymore), which made him depressed, severely depressed, he lost his house (because no job means no money for rent) and he ended up on the street as a result.
We thought he smelled literally and figuratively bad, but if you have a conversation with him, he turns out to be extremely intelligent. Anything but crazy. He is not A, but C! He just doesn’t know how to be himself again and for that he needs help… from you.
The person you saw is not the person you thought they were. And in this case, it is even more difficult, because the homeless person is not A (what you thought), nor B (because he is on alcohol, and that changes him again), but is in reality C.
If we all delved a little more into people’s real stories, put a little more time into it, gave people the space to tell their stories, and didn’t immediately push them into box A by what we see, not just telling him things, but also really asking them why and how, having a real conversation with them and not monologuing to them that they need to “take a shower”… take off our sunglasses… and with an open mind start a real conversation… then the world would be a more beautiful place… without even more “written off” people… who are not hopeless A, but someone who, with your help can be his own C again… How about we not only take our mask off, but also take off our own sunglasses?
Are those easy conversations? No. Are these the conversations that are completed quickly and yield quick results? No. So we take all the time, step by step, searching for the real you. Without our sunglasses.