A MAN’S ESSENCE

“To capture a man’s essence in an instant is not only unfair to the man but also not fair to yourself. One never knows what the man had to endure in the moment prior or how the man will evolve in the moment following.” 

Tony Jarrah


Tony Jarrah Writer and Author

The thinking that first impressions count is an unfair man-made thing. It’s based in fear, ridicule, judgment and apathy.

I once saw a woman get into a terrible argument with a check out girl in the supermarket.  There was no swearing or screaming, just complaining about the ridiculously rising grocery prices (which are truly ridiculous here).  The woman wouldn’t let it go so ultimately they asked her to leave.

As I left the supermarket I sat on a bench outside to have a smoke.  The woman came and sat next to me.  She was crying. I offered her a smoke and started a conversation with her.  She told me that her husband had lost his job and that they were losing their house.  They had no money to eat (barely) and she was finding it hard to cope.

She seemed like a perfectly fine human being.  She expressed no anger or bitterness, she was just caught up in a moment of desperateness due to her circumstances.  But people in the supermarket were rolling their eyes and later commenting that she was a psycho.  I felt that their reactions to this woman were terribly unfair to her. First impressions are always based on ignorance.

I’ve seen people turn their lives around after a life time of leaving a dirty trail.  Sometimes people need a little learning, a little support, a helping hand and a lot of love.  We sometimes make the wrong choices in life, which put us on a completely different path to the one we chose to be in when, in spirit form, we decided to have this human experience, and so life will not ever work out until we find the path we are truly supposed to be on, the path our soul desires.

Sometimes growth and maturity comes early in life.  Sometimes it comes later in life.  Sometimes it never comes at all.  I believe that everybody can do with a little “something” in order to get on to the right path.  After all, every experience is part of learning and living the life experience.

As my friend Patti suggests, giving first impressions a second chance is the fair thing to do.  Observation of the self and of others in order to get a better understanding of life is paramount when trying to live a fruitful and wholesome life.  But we are quick to judge others without knowing the road they’ve had to travel.  We ourselves are not exactly the model human being.  Most of us have acted out, or harmed others, made fools of ourselves even, at some point in our lives.  So when we live in glass houses we most certainly shouldn’t be casting stones at others.

Let me give you a personal example going back to the very early years of Facebook.

At a time when most of my FB friends were only weeks old (as my friends), with some of them having come into my FB life just months earlier, during a time where my life took a left turn into the swamp, and things had never, ever been so bad for me, I wrote and shared a lot.  I had many discussions with people and I was in a really dark and painful place. I’m sure that some felt I was a negative and depressive man.  Others came into my FB life months later and those people saw a completely different Tony.  I was more lively, more awake and enlightened, and some even said funny.

All of these people are extremely intelligent.  They are mature, experienced and enlightened people.  They were my gift from God and the universe at the time.  They came at the most opportune time into my life.  During that time I had been learning and growing, some said I had also been teaching.  My life, although still pretty bad at the time, had made a complete 180 because of these people that came to help me, even if they didn’t know it at the time.

This positive change in me happened because people had taken the time, they were supportive, friendly, loving.  Oh so loving, and understanding.  They were non-judgmental, and so they helped me to deal with things in a better way, in a way that helped me.

These people came into my life because they had to come into my life.  They were my angels, my guides, my teachers, my givers and receivers and they were exactly what I needed.  They were given to me by God and the universe.  What a gift oh unworthy one. They helped me tremendously during a bad time in my life.

Anyone one of us is that person for someone in need, they need us even if they don’t realise it at that moment, and if we come across people in need, they are an opportunity given to us by the divine to help a fellow soul come out of the darkness. We owe it to ourselves, for our own personal, spiritual evolution, and we owe it to them.

So no, first impressions don’t count for anything. There could be any one of a million demons slapping that person around and it’s not up to us to judge them or anyone else.  We don’t know the road they’ve travelled.

Tony Jarrah

Author of

Taming Life – Happiness Is Not a Myth


TTT LogoAll rights reserved.  © 2015 Tony Jarrah