Truth Is Far from Stereotypes - Essay Example

There are as many opinions in the world as there are people. Each of us has certain likes and dislikes, different preferences, specific views, opinions, and beliefs. Each personality is unique and complicated; each character combines a great number of various qualities, which, in their turn, shape person’s behavior, world perception and ideology. From the early childhood and through the whole life we are taught to behave and treat people in this or that way, to analyze and draw conclusions, to act in a certain way in each specific situation.

But sometimes, being taught to classify, we learn to stereotype. Based on some personal or sometimes even generally accepted opinions, we may often get mistaken making the first opinion about another person. This, hence, causes prejudice and that is unfair towards the people living nearby, for any kind of prejudice is an unsupported by facts subjective belief. A similar situation has happened to me. It was several years ago when I first visited Puerto Rico. Preparing for the trip I was somewhat unsure of what to expect.

I thought a completely new and, consequently, strange and hostile environment was waiting for me. This impression was enhanced by my idea that I would be a stranger, a foreigner among the natives. At that time I was seeing Puerto Rico as a completely different world, absolutely different from what I’m used to in the ordinary day-to-day life. I guess such expectations and thoughts were the result of my unawareness of the major cultural and national traits of the land’s population. I, actually, knew nearly nothing about them, and probably that is why I was so unsure of what to expect.

On the other hand, I believe no matter how much information you can get from the media, your real-life impressions will be much different from everything you learned in theory.So, I got to my destination. And from the very first days of my staying in Puerto Rico I was getting more and more astonished by what was happening to me. People appeared to be so friendly, open-mined, and kind, that I was feeling as if I had spent years living next door. It was amazingly easy to communicate with them, they were always open to help you out, and were even inviting me to their family parties, though they almost didn’t know me!

Maybe it is a consequence of a different culture, maybe it is just the side I saw, but what I realized is that you have no right to make any conclusions beforehand, before you see the actual situation. Could I expect such a warm welcome in the territory where I knew nobody? – No, I was extremely surprised. I understood that all of my fears and assumptions made before the trip were completely wrong. Probably it was just a result of stereotyping. At the same time I understand that experience communicating with those people greatly changed my understanding of communication itself.

I might be wrong, but I believe all the people are kind in their nature, it’s just our stereotypes, certain social rules and prejudice make us divide people into different categories. My trip showed me that we all are very similar; we all tend for the good and the positive. In addition, I learned that the human nature can understood only through open communication and experience. With time, the more experience I get, the better I understand all the processes taking place around me. I am thankful to the people I met for the lesson they gave me: understanding comes with experience, and the truth is far from stereotypes.