First impressions

It is very easy to be judgemental about someone. I mean, how easily and hastily we form an opinion about someone.

You might say ‘I don’t do this’. Maybe true. But wait, while having this very thought “I don’t do this”, another thought might have rushed in your mind-which stupid things is this person speaking about.

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In fact, the very phrase ‘first impression is that last impression’, which has been transferred to us verbally across many generations since our childhood confirms this fact.

Since childhood or rather since we begin understanding we have always been told to be in our best looks, in our best possible behaviour and manners; if we are meeting a person for the first time. Yes, I do understand that meeting any new person for the first time makes us have a particular image of that person. It isn’t wrong. But things go wrong when both of us and the opposite person think that the window to create an impression has been closed after the first meeting.

And this further leads to prejudices. Some of us might have read the ‘Pride and Prejudice’- a great classic by Jane Austen. Here, Elizabeth and Mr.Darcy both have prejudices against each other, thanks to their first impressions. Coincidentally, this (first impressions) itself was the title of the book initially adapted by Jane Austen. Later it changed to Pride and Prejudice.

What I want to say is, luckily as far as the storyline is concerned their prejudices were cast away with time. But this does not happen in most of the cases in real life. The wrong impressions created due to any unpleasant or awkward incident during the first meeting goes on to become prejudice and creates an undissolvable, invisible, permanent knot between those two people. And in many of the real-life cases that knot persists forever.

What the society needs to understand in broader terms is that a person should get sufficient time for letting the other person know him and letting himself known to the other person. Yes, this is a two-way process, and its importance needs to be recognized and worked upon.

For this, somewhere, we need to modify and change our expectations as far as the first impressions are concerned. We need to adapt this mentality of first impressions not being the last. This cannot be the expectation of a single person. This thought should receive societal acceptance. And it certainly will revolutionize the society; as people now won’t move ahead forming opinions about anyone in a short span.

This will not only reduce the unnecessarily created tension between people but will also increase the productivity of the society as a whole-be it emotional, social, spiritual and yes, even economical. Just changing the stereotypical way of being about in the society and moving towards an understanding of behaviour will bring fruitful outcomes. What do you all say?

By Siddhi

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