A Book By It's Cover

I was riding on the train again (big surprise I know) when an elderly man sat next to me. There wasn't anything significant about him as he seemed very quiet and organised. His shirt was nicely ironed and he had a small briefcase with him. Once seated he opened his brief case and from the corner of my eye I noticed how organised it was - nothing was out of place. He then proceeded to take what appeared to be a small coin purse out of the brief case. Now very curious as to what this man was doing I started to pay closer attention without giving myself away. He opened the coin purse and removed a pair of neatly wrapped headphones. I was dying of curiosity; what sort of music would this man be interested in? I assumed it would be classical and wondered if you could even get classical music on an iPod? But what happened next shocked me slightly.  The elderly man switched on his iPod and started to listen to Lady Gaga. Once the music was blaring out of his ears he reached once again for his briefcase and took out a gaming magazine and spent the rest of his trip reading about World Of Warcraft. That was until the stop before his stop where we neatly packed everything away and sat quietly with briefcase in lap waiting for the train to stop.

This brief interaction with a man I have never met before and will most likely never see again made me think. We shouldn't be so quick to judge people. Sure you can only make one first impression but that's not always the most accurate impression. We have no capable way of knowing what people are hiding underneath their surface until they open up to us. Until then we can't really judge people for who they are because we don't know who they really are. 

It goes beyond people as well. We tend to close ourselves off to experiencing new foods or cultures based on appearances or smells. We don't allow ourselves to be fully immersed in anything because we make judgements without trying first. I suppose what I'm trying to get at, in the most cliché way possible, is don't judge a book by it's cover. Allow yourself to be surprised by everything life has to offer.