I sit in a place that feels both old and new at the same time. I drink coffee whose taste I know so well, and yet I have not felt it for a long time. Behind the bar of a hotel I once left with unease. Today I savor it and feel peace, as if I were returning home.
After a long while, there is no need to discover or to learn. Everything is familiar. An old friend wishes me good morning, from the door he waves with a gesture so personal to him – and yet I understood it at once.
This whole moment, the memories, and the way I once belonged here, show me how deeply our feelings and our knowing of people shape the lens through which we see them. Once, he was just a colleague, eager, and yet I sometimes looked at him as a superior. Today, as I wrote, a friend… I know who he is, I understand him – and that is how I see him now.
Today I do not notice his haircut or his clothes. I see the complete picture, untouched by outward influences. And I wonder further – if the way we tend to judge new people in our lives is also how we would wish to judge those closest to us. A mother, a father, our children… And how many people we may lose because of that first lens. How many of them are the gold in this world.
So perhaps we should not rely on first impressions, nor judge too quickly, nor close ourselves off as if our view were the only right one. Let us give ourselves the time to truly know people – and perhaps enrich our lives more than we ever thought possible.