Looking Past the Weaknesses
By Claire Enos
As I was reading an article on seeing past the outward appearances and seeing each other as God sees each of us, I was filled with joy that there are people out there who are compassionate and willing to look past the ugly outside to see the good inside. However, as I read through some of the comments at the end of the article, I was filled with sadness.
As people, none of us are perfect. We all have imperfections. My mom can't spell very well, I know people with atrocious grammar (and I'm no where near perfect on that front either). However, my mom and my friends are among the smartest people I know. They've gone to school, some of them have degrees in various areas or are working on getting degrees. It saddens me to know that these people who are very smart are judged based on how poorly they spell or how horrible their grammar is.
As an English major I understand the importance of spelling and grammar, and how they can affect how a person is seen. It is unconscious. We automatically assume that just because someone can't spell or doesn't know grammar that they are not smart and we push their intelligence below that of those who can spell and have correct grammar. I should know, I used to be like that as well, until I made some friends who I knew mainly via text, and I got tired of correcting every single message they sent me. I realized that they were smart, they had well-thought out ideas, they just didn't know how to spell the words they were using, although they knew how to use them correctly in a sentence.
What I'm trying to get at, is that we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Someone can be smart, but be horrible at spelling. Someone can excel at writing but be horrible with grammar. We need to be able to look past the weaknesses of others in order to see who they really are. I myself need to work at this as well, I know that, I recognize it, and I'm working at it right now. If we could all just look past the weaknesses of others and see that we all have weaknesses, but we all have strengths as well the world will be a little bit better place to live in.
Until next week,
<3Claire
As I was reading an article on seeing past the outward appearances and seeing each other as God sees each of us, I was filled with joy that there are people out there who are compassionate and willing to look past the ugly outside to see the good inside. However, as I read through some of the comments at the end of the article, I was filled with sadness.As people, none of us are perfect. We all have imperfections. My mom can't spell very well, I know people with atrocious grammar (and I'm no where near perfect on that front either). However, my mom and my friends are among the smartest people I know. They've gone to school, some of them have degrees in various areas or are working on getting degrees. It saddens me to know that these people who are very smart are judged based on how poorly they spell or how horrible their grammar is.
As an English major I understand the importance of spelling and grammar, and how they can affect how a person is seen. It is unconscious. We automatically assume that just because someone can't spell or doesn't know grammar that they are not smart and we push their intelligence below that of those who can spell and have correct grammar. I should know, I used to be like that as well, until I made some friends who I knew mainly via text, and I got tired of correcting every single message they sent me. I realized that they were smart, they had well-thought out ideas, they just didn't know how to spell the words they were using, although they knew how to use them correctly in a sentence.
What I'm trying to get at, is that we all have our strengths and our weaknesses. Someone can be smart, but be horrible at spelling. Someone can excel at writing but be horrible with grammar. We need to be able to look past the weaknesses of others in order to see who they really are. I myself need to work at this as well, I know that, I recognize it, and I'm working at it right now. If we could all just look past the weaknesses of others and see that we all have weaknesses, but we all have strengths as well the world will be a little bit better place to live in.
Until next week,
<3Claire
Sometimes the lack of spelling or grammer (in some cases both) can actually be due to it not being thier first launguage. All flaws also seem to have a reason or story behind them that seem to make them go away once you know the person!
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