BUILDING BETTER HABITS
A man working hard to avoid prejudice/Credit/Luis Quintero
Facts
We live in a big
world. And a lot of things happen in a big world. Things change every day. And you
cannot claim to be in every corner of the world. Unless you keep up with new information
about the changes taking place. Being prejudiced is being half-baked. It involves
opinions that do not necessarily reflect the actual state of a thing or a person.
Prejudice comes from societal norms or expectations. Sometimes from stereotypes.
Sometimes from ignorance. Sometimes from arrogance. And sometimes from
foolishness. Anyone can fall in any category. It all depends with your
socialization. Some people are influenced by societal norms, while others by
ignorance. Whatever influence you suffer from, it is time to drop this
attitude. Prejudice stands in the way of progress. It stands in the way of
truth. And you don’t want to be a ‘fool’ in a somewhat bright world.
Acting under the
influence of prejudice prevents you from being an authentic person. Prejudice prevents
you from being a resourceful person. Because you interpret the world and people
using wrong lens. And when you do that, you create dangers. Dangers that come
with being prejudiced. You pretend to know a lot yet; you don’t know anything
about things you are prejudiced about. Some time back when I was a
communication student, we learned about prejudice. Prejudice is among the four
negatives in public relations, that needs to be converted into a positive. When
people suffer from prejudice, they reject information. They do not readily
accept new knowledge. Because they are used to certain standards. For example,
if, a new business introduces a new product to the market. It takes time before
the public fully accepts that new product.
The public takes
longer to accept a new product or new knowledge because it is hooked somewhere
else. It is used to certain products, which it has known for a number of years.
So, a new product is not moving the public at all. To change this attitude, a
public relations officer, needs to convert prejudice into knowledge. Information
about the new product must be shared to the market. The more knowledge a
company puts out about its products and business. The more it changes people’s
perspectives and attitudes towards them. A new product can be even better than other
products in the market. However, the public will not know about those benefits,
unless it opens up to new knowledge and understanding. You can only beat traps
of being prejudiced by working with the right information.
Working with facts
instead, of assumptions. Assumptions prevent people from accessing the truth. You
cannot just judge other people by merely looking at them. You cannot just come
up with a conclusion about someone or something using assumptions. Assumptions do
not reflect the correct total representation of a being or a thing. The correct
representation comes from knowledge and understanding. When the public
eventually understands how a new product benefits it, it begins to consume the
product. Some people might end up loving the new product even more than the product
they have known for a long time. Yet, in the beginning, they were closed. They were
rejecting the product. In a big world like the contemporary world, you cannot
assume. You cannot allow yourself to be prejudiced.
You must open up
yourself to knowledge and understanding. You must seek the right information. You
must work with facts. You must challenge your stereotypes, societal norms,
preconditioned expectations, and ignorance. You must choose to learn. You must
choose understanding. People are not bad or good. People are who they are in
real life. You can only say someone is this or that based on the truth. You don’t
conclude that someone is bad because everyone around you thinks so. You need to
go the extra mile, and find the truth. You need facts. Being prejudiced is a limitation.
A limitation that you cannot nurture. You want to see clearly. You want to be
objective. Facts and correct information about things and people make you
objective. You just don’t assume. No one hates you. People are just different.
Go for the truth. Use facts instead of preconditioned mindset.
Ask
If, you don’t know
something or someone, ask. Ask for more information about the person or the thing
you are limited about. Don’t lock yourself in a corner and start
misrepresenting people and things using prejudice. Open up yourself to
knowledge. Access knowledge. Learn about things you don’t know. Stop accepting
what everyone else knows. Everyone else knows about that something that way
because innovation has not been added. But you live in a world where things are
changing every day. The pace is just fast. You might have known about something
yesterday. However, today is a new day. There is something new about what you
learned yesterday. So you cannot judge something or someone using yesterday’s
knowledge when there is today’s knowledge. Ask questions. Get the truth.
If, you must talk
about other people. Then talk about other people using the right information. Use
current knowledge. Knowledge that is sourced from the right person. Get the right
knowledge from the people you must talk about. Ask them what is going on. Why are
they acting the way they act? Why are they different from you? Why are they
different from everyone else? You will get the right answers. You will get the
right information. You will have a better understanding of why things are the
way they are. You will be more informed. You will become better. You will learn
how to react. You will adjust yourself. You will behave better. New knowledge will
correct your previous assumptions. You will have a better understanding of
reality. You must commit to get out of prejudiced web.
Being prejudiced is
the easiest thing to do. Being prejudiced is lazy. It taps into what already exists.
It utilizes what already exists without questioning it. Being prejudiced does
not focus on the right way. It focuses on mainstream. The accepted truth
according to masses. The single-sided way of seeing things. In this context,
people do not see the other way of doing things or living. People are used to a
certain way. A way that could be preventing them from making progress. People do
not have better understanding of affairs. They have limited themselves by using
preconditions. You cannot live your life this way. you need to start questioning
and asking questions. There is no way everyone can hate one person. If, you
find yourself in mainstream thinking, you need to question yourself. One person
cannot be an enemy to the masses. Start asking questions. Start using facts. Start
working with reliable sources.
Credible
Information
You need high-quality
information that is verifiable about things and people. Being prejudice does
not offer you this opportunity. An opportunity to work with high quality
information. You don’t access credible information when you are prejudiced. When
you are being prejudiced you become limited. You can only travel that far. You can
only use what you have. You can only use what everyone else has. You are not open
to discovery. You are not going past where everyone stopped. You are being
lazy. You are being half-baked. And you cannot use these gaps to make the
correct judgment. You don’t have the correct judgment when you are limited. You
need knowledge. You need trustworthy information to make the right judgments. You
need credible information to make informed decisions. You cannot allow yourself
to hate one person based on wrong prejudice. You must decide to get out of your
ignorance.
You need to start
learning new things. You need to start understanding new things. You need to
understand people. You need to start consuming the right information. Get credible
information from the right sources. Talk to the person that everyone hates. Stop
following masses. Start being your own person. Get over societal norms and
expectations. Stop using stereotypes in your judgement. Stop being ignorant. Seek
new knowledge. Stop pretending that you know so much about people and things. Find
credible sources. Work with the right information. Stop talking about people
you don’t know. Stop behaving as if, you know them. The fact that another
person said something about the other person, does not make the other person an
enemy. You don’t know the truth. You don’t have the actual experience of
something. Therefore, a product or a person cannot be bad because everyone said
the same thing.
You need to be your own person. Develop your own
mind. Think for yourself. Stop being prejudiced. Stop creating divisions based
on limited knowledge. Stop misrepresenting people and things you don’t have
enough information about. If, you must critique the people or things. Do so
using the truth. Get credible information from the right people. Narrow down
the number of people you listen to every day. Get past gossip. Go past
traditions. Live in the moment. Use facts. Find the truth. Judge using the
right knowledge and information. In fact, no one asked you to analyze them. You
are not the detective in your neighborhood. You are not an agent of the most
elite unit in the world. Do not create a wall around your life. Do not reject
new knowledge. Get over being prejudiced. Come out of bad practices that create
wrong perceptions about other things and people. Root out negativity. Convert your
prejudice into knowledge. Accept new knowledge. Find credible information. Ask questions.
Use facts. Work with the truth. Stop being prejudiced. Learn. Become better. Innovate.
Think for yourself.
.webp)
.webp)
Comments