As I put pen to paper, there’s a royal wedding playing out on the goggle box in the far corner of casa Strachan’s modest living room. The Duke of York’s youngest daughter Princess Eugenie and a chap called Jack, who both Mrs Strachan’s senior and junior opined “Seems a lovely lad!”, the soon to be betrothed couple.
I’ve never met, or am likely to meet, the groom to enforce the duo of Mrs S’s notions whether our new royal family member is ‘dolphin-friendly’, or not. I must admit, though, I’m intrigued at how my wife and mother felt informed enough to make a judgement as to the lad’s good character.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for one second disputing Jack Brooksbank is anything other than the ‘lovely lad’ my mater and spouse judge him to be – And even if he isn’t, it’s of little consequence to me either way. Unless, of course, he has a dark plan to systematically purge West Yorkshire of bloggers.
Despite this indifference, I do, though, have an interest in how Karen and Maggie arrived at their opinions about the young man whose surname is nearly an anagram of bookbank.
They say first impressions count, but surely even the evilest of people can put on a suit and behave graciously. After all, serial killers Fred West and Peter Sutcliffe probably scrubbed up well on their wedding days. I very much doubt at his wedding reception Fred updated his new in-laws with his future plans, if indeed they’d been drawn up at the time.
Again, I’m keen to re-iterate this narrative isn’t in any way a judgement of our new member of royalty. Even though I’ve absolutely no idea of this young man’s character, I’d heavily wager he isn’t capable of evil acts. The observation within this prose surrounds the trait of some individuals to make initial judgements of people in spite of being bereft of enough detail to make it an informed opinion.
It’s not a criticism, looking for the good in people is an admirable trait. However, should it be the case we avoid initial negativity, but judge with more caution than instantly deciding someone we’ve never met “Seems like a lovely lad!”, or lass even.
I’ve a family member who habitually makes hasty conclusions about how lovely everyone is. Judgements, I know from experience, that in some instances are the very antithesis of the ‘lovely’ person’s actual character.
Anyhow, hopefully Jack and Eugenie will enjoy many years of happy marriage, blessed with children, minimum court appearances and a paucity of time spent in Wormwood Scrubs.
To close, I wanted to share a Me-Me that appeared on my Facebook timeline this morning. Like many who utilise the social media app, I get numerous of these type of pictures proffering erudite words of self-help.
I rarely share them on Facebook, and ordinarily never feel inclined to blog about them. However, today I felt moved to cascade this advice after earlier discovering the truth behind the advocacy, following my consumption of three Terrys Chocolate oranges.
