We are in control.

If not of everyone else, then of ourselves. It is a blessing because, as human beings, we are prone to judging others based on how we perceive them. Although overcoming this baser instinct is difficult, it is not impossible. The gift of being in control is that we are capable of change.

Sometimes, change is needed.

I’ve heard students claim that they like the school itself, they just don’t like the people. It is a common phrase, however vague it may be, and it should be altered.

From talking with many of my classmates and friends, I have discovered that a shockingly large number of students agree with this statement.

People stutter when asked to explain. I’ve heard some people take the statement back completely.

Others try to justify the statement with judgments: “It’s just… just that… Well, I heard some freshman girls talking about who’s a better kisser.”

The rest retreat to a more shadowed, safer path by claiming that other students are “disrespectful” and “cliquey.”

All in all, I have found that when these students are asked to explain why they claim to dislike the people at GBN, the explanations are half-baked and I am left with my curiosity raging unabated.

GBN is a brilliant institution. The building is beautiful, the teachers are helpful and there are an ample  amount of activities and clubs to join. But what makes an institution isn’t the organization of it. It isn’t the way classes are run, the clubs or the physical nature of the building. No, it’s the people who are a part of it, who influence it.

How we act and behave affects the environment around us, especially at school. If someone walks around thinking that everybody around them exudes a hazy cloud that reeks of snobbery and rudeness then that’s what they’ll find. We see what we want to see. So, if we believe that someone is, say, “weird” because of a post of theirs we read on Facebook or because of how they happen to dress, then that is how we will see them.

The environment is, thus, affected by our judgments. People who say they don’t like their peers seem to sit, high and mighty, with a golden gavel in hand, passing their judgments without knowing the full situation. From what I’ve heard and witnessed, many of the students who think this way have come to the conclusion that they do not like the majority of the student body through snap judgments and hearsay, an ever-reliable medium.

When people decide to join GBN’s fast growing supreme court, they close themselves off from everybody around them. All potential friends. Our perceptions generate our truths and these truths can, if we let them, make us close-minded and closed off.

Do you even know the people you claim to dislike? Some of them, maybe, but certainly not all of them. It is as if we are so disengaged from those around us, so wrapped up in ourselves that we allow our perceptions to cloud our vision.

It is possible that maybe, if we hold back from announcing our final verdict, we’ll see a person behaving in a way that is at odds with our perception. We’ll learn that the girl who blurts out rude, obnoxious comments is just trying to fit in or that the boy who seems to keep to himself just doesn’t know to approach people.

We are in control and can curb our judgments.

I love school in a way that encompasses both the institution and the people I have surrounded myself with. I try to remind myself that if someone acts in a way that I deem rude or weird, it’s not my place to judge them. I don’t even know the them.

In light of everything, maybe the idea of liking the school and not the people ought to be altered to this: “I like the school itself and I like many of the people in the school. Those who I don’t like, well, I just don’t know.”

Keep your minds open, friends, or you may never know what’s right in front of your nose.