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Just last week a friend of mine was telling me how she's organizing a national contest that involves pianists from a range of different places as well as walks of life. She told me waitresses, laborers, all types of people who are gifted with that type of musical ability will compete during this event next week. I didn't get any more details than that, or the official name of the contest. I believe she is going to be sending me more information, in case I want to volunteer to help prepare for it with her this weekend.

However, that snippet of conversation between us, during a quick snack break in the office cafeteria, really made me do a double take. I guess, like everyone, I have my own ideas of how things are and aren't, and often think people can be neatly categorized into neatly labeled packages. I have to remind myself now and then that just because a person waitresses at a restaurant or shines shoes for a living -- that doesn't mean that what we see is the total sum of who they are.

I don't believe I'm the only one who makes snap judgments in this way. I'm kind of ashamed that I do. I just assume that a person working in the auto parts store never went to college or even dreamed of it. I really can't talk, at 35 years old, with no degree to speak of. It just never happened for me. The timing was never right when I was young and wanted it so badly I could taste it. By the time the opportunities were more available to me I was making a good living and needed the full-time salary to survive; so I couldn't just quit to attend school. I tried more than once to attend evening classes, and it interfered with so many other things I wanted to do in life -- which was, well...to have a life. I wasn't able to make that commitment that many other working adults do for years in order to have the honor of a degree bestowed upon them. I don't know if I ever will. I have no energy, willpower, much less mental acuity left at the end of the working day. I jumped in with the best intentions at a few different schools, many times. I've had to put that dream on the backburner. You can't live in this society without working full-time, and going to classes late into the night and trying to rise early is not an option for me.

Anyway...maybe these hardworking people I see in restaurants or working on construction projects by the side of a busy highway are more dedicated than I am. Maybe they do what they do just to bide their time as they struggle through long hours of college courses that will, in the long run, send them into careers more to their liking. But we can't know everything by the skin on the outside of one another. So I know that I need to work on not assuming I know everything about other people from what I see on the outside.

My friend's mention of this competition really brought this home for me. Maybe these people have menial jobs or quiet, simple lives. But deep inside of some of them, as in everyone, something surprising lives and breathes that might astonish us if we better took the time to know them.

Let's make this improved perception of those around us something that we take to heart, and not be so quick to throw away the chance to meet amazing people.

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