Kyle Mac’s Blog

I believe that you should never pass judgment on someone until you have learned the whole story. The chances are, generally, there is a reasonable explanation for something and what we see is not all there is. The teacher of this has always irrefutably been my father. As superintendent of the school district, he is often found on the short end of the complaint stick; but, if anything, this has made him more understanding of people. We often don’t realize the stress and difficulty that comes with a certain job and only judge by the end result and how it affects us. I think my dad tries to see past this; and I believe he has passed that ability on to me.

                I recently spent some time in Indiana at a wedding, put on by a particularly un-liked wedding planner. She was the butt of many a joke the night at the reception and many thought she was overpriced, seeing as how it was apparent that she had not done much work. The next night, as me and my family (Grandparents, aunts, uncles etc) were gathered around the dinner table, the topic of discussion quickly became how horrible the wedding planner was at what she did. She charged them money for odd things; she didn’t do much work; she didn’t even seem to do any prior planning (my aunt had booked the catering company and the bride had booked the venue prior to hiring the planner). I watched in silence and listened as my family tore apart the woman over hamburgers and hotdogs. My dad, also, was strangely quiet. At a momentary break in the carnage, someone turned and asked his opinion on the matter. He simply said “we’re not sure what all she did. There may be a lot she did behind the scenes that we’re not aware of.” My relatives seemed took take a second to reflect upon that, before quickly shooting it down and returning to the gossip.

                In retrospect, this philosophy seems to be a hybrid between “don’t judge a book” and “cast the first stone,” (let he who is without sin judge a book by its cover? I don’t know). At any rate, we should all use this mindset to not prejudge and misjudge people until we have learned the whole truth behind their actions. This I believe.