How they treat anyone

Lately I have been thinking a lot about who I spend all my time with. Does it mean I’m in trouble if I spend a lot of time with my cat? Am I going to turn into a fuzzy, orange silly-billy? Gee, now I’m scared! Jokes aside, I do believe a lot of where you will wind up is based on who you have to push you when you’re low. “Show me your friends and I will show you your future,” a wise man once said. Even psalm 1 says “blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked.” 

But what does that really look like? How do we separate the wicked from the righteous? The obvious answer would be to split the world into believers and non-believers and cut ourselves off from those wretched heathens! Although I’m not opposed to showing a little favoritism to those who have proven themselves Godly, I have another trick I want to highlight. I think there’s a solid indicator of how close you should be to someone. 

I think the best way to judge a person’s character is to judge how they treat anyone. Especially if you suspect they are trying to impress you, see what they are like to everyone else. See how they treat their friends, their neighbors, even the cashier at starbucks. This will tell you a lot about a person, because if you stick around for long enough, the need to impress will fade and they will begin treating you like those other people along the way. Is that going to be a good thing or a bad thing? A little detective work will tell you. 

Try to get a feel for the entire gamut of how they act. Are they rude to the staff when they go out to eat? Better yet: how do they treat the people that wrong them? Oh boy, can you learn a lot about someone by how they treat their enemies! And if you want to see their darkest side, take them through rush hour traffic. Then you will know exactly who you are dealing with! The reason I say this is because seeing how someone interacts with everyone will show you what their real standards are. You’ll learn what they could never imagine doing, even when that choice might be tempting. It will show you what they do with their emotions in uglier times. Do they do whatever they feel like? Do they hold back? Do they even feel like doing the wrong thing in the first place? Dark times will teach you a thing or two about someone. 

The closer you get to someone, the more likely you are to see what someone is willing to fall into doing against someone. But you shouldn’t expect the person to be perfect. This is simply a call to get to know someone in a different, perhaps more authentic, way. It’s a way to avoid the pitfalls and traps of a really good faker. It will help you get to know who you are investing in if you are going to be around for the long-haul. Don’t hold it against them, but if they start to treat everyone else a certain way, know that they might wind up justifying treating you like that. 

And although this has so far been entirely about how we judge others, we can also use this as a way to judge ourselves. In our more trying circumstances, how do we treat people? Are we a nuisance in traffic coming home from work? Are we unpleasant to the obnoxious customer on the phone, or to the cashier at walmart? How you treat anyone is how you might wind up treating everyone. I say this tentatively, because there are exceptions. Just because I am comfortable breaking the arm of an intruder doesn’t mean I am likely to turn around and break my brother’s arm. It may not even mean that I am comfortable using violence against everyone who wrongs me. I would say the point is to observe more consistent behavior to truly assess who a person truly is. You can’t always trust what someone is telling you to your face. Sometimes you have to see who they truly are when they aren’t trying to control how you see them. Sometimes you have to get to know who someone is behind your back. 

For action steps, I have two. The first is for others. Is there someone you are getting close to that you might need to check up on? Ask a mutual friend how this person treats them. You could even just observe how your friend treats others. Maybe it’s other employees that are being treated questionably. Try to assess what your “friend” is willing and capable of doing to others. Check what power they might be abusing. 

And for our other action step, I believe we should look inward. Make a list of your daily habits. Make a list of things you are and are not comfortable doing on a daily basis, and do a little digging into why. Play around with fake scenarios and see what you come up with. Ultimately, you should begin coming to reasons to be good outside of what you feel, because one day you will feel like doing the wrong thing and it will lead you to a dark place. 

I hope this helps make you a better person, and that you are able to assess the character of yourself and others for the greater good of those around you.

Until next time

May Peace be your guide.