Summing Up

There is something that I heard that I did wonder about, but think I know why now.  It is based on an experience I had ages ago.
The saying, referring to something negative, says something like “don’t let it be named among you even once.”
There is a house I regularly drive by.  It is unpretentious in itself.  Certainly it is nice, but it does not stand out in anyway.
One day I drove by that place and there was a naked girl out the front talking to someone.  Fair dinkum I did a double take.  It was something I had never seen before or since.  From that time on I refer to that house as the naked girl house.  It matters not to me that for years and years it is not that way.  Every time I pass it, it is now the naked girl house.
This experience has shown me that although that only ever happened the once it has forever informed my view.
In some ways I think it is similar to how we are defined.  People tend to sum us up in a word or very few words.  Our past tends to define us.  Often it is right, but not always.  It seems to me that because someone did something once, they are not necessarily that way.  Many times they are, but it is an assumption to assume they are now, unless current behaviour proves it.
It is why I feel I need to get to know someone before I can state how they are. Sure, the way I see someone is based on what I have heard. If it is negative, I need to be wary but I need to prove it for myself before it is my experience.  This can be really fraught, but to me it is unfair to judge someone based solely on hearsay.  It is probably true, but I would hate to be assess only on the opinion of one person.  Someone may have spent time with that person on a really bad day for them – or they themselves could have been having a really bad day.
To me one piece of a jigsaw, is not the whole jigsaw.  People are complicated.  I know I am anyway. People’s assessment is only one piece.  I think evidence needs to be built up line on line.   It is no wonder it is called a “body of evidence.”
I know I like to quote Switchfoot songs but they have one called “Let the Light Shine Through.”  I heard a story about this, and their song confirmed it for me.  It tells of a tapestry that looked really terrible when viewed.  However if a person looked at the tapestry from the other side it was a beautiful picture.
To me our lives are a bit like that.  Many times we do not know what is going on and things look terrible, but viewed another way, it all makes sense.
I am fond of saying it is not how one starts that counts, but how one finishes.  We saw this with the Scottish marathon runner at the Commonwealth games.  He collapsed.  He may have started well, but that counts for nothing.  He was not on the podium at the finish.
I may be dreaming, but I would like people to make conclusions about me based on more than one person’s assessment.