Allhumdolillah! I am at a much better place since my last post with series of lab tests, utlrasounds, a mammogram and some other really scary tests, and a gut wrenching anxiety of results. I am doing well thankfully everything was clear except low iron levels with vitamin d3 deficiency. These deficiencies are now on their way to recovery. It is worth noting that I have been struggling with intense brain and physical fatigue since 2019 but not a single doctor was able to identify my problem. Once somebody is diagnosed with depression or anxiety then every health issue they complain about is looked from the psychological lenses. Nobody asked me to check iron, vitamin b12 or vitamin d3 deficiencies even my mum who is a dermatologist always assured me that I am fine and this weakness is just a phase. It was a phase alright, it engulfed almost 8 years of my life pushed back my career and research ambitions. This is not the case alone with me but there are many people who silentl...
William Hazlitt was an English writer remembered for his humanistic essays and and far more
famous for giving us the famous quote first
impression is the last impression. First impressions are often
the truest, as we find (not unfrequently) to our cost, when we have been
wheedled out of them by plausible professions or actions...(Essay by William Hazlitt- On the knowledge of Character)
It takes only
one tenth of a second for us to make up our minds about people, according to a recent
research. Psychologists at Princeton University, in the US found that people
made judgements about the attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness,
competence and aggressiveness of other people after looking at their faces for
100 milliseconds.
Rather than
correcting initial judgements, longer glances at the same faces caused people
to become more convinced of their initial opinions, the scientists found.
There was a study published in Nature Neuroscience, led by Daniela Schiller at New York
University along with other scientists from Harvard University. All these
scientists concluded that "when you
meet a person, they might say something, or look a certain way, or behave a
certain way, but you have very little information on which to form an opinion,
but it is almost instantaneous and you can't withhold from doing it’.
Like all of
you for me, the first impressions were hugely important. I judged people based on what they appeared to
me in the first or even second meeting.
However now I can
say for sure that our first impressions or first appearances can be deceptive,
and sometimes even with our initial interactions with somebody we could be completely
wrong about them.
Our first
impressions are made not on how the other person appears to us rather they are
formed on how we are programmed in our live; what are our biases, our fears,
and so on.
I have also made
first impressions about few people; however, later I have been pleasantly surprised
by them. On one such occasion when I assumed somebody to be lazy; a spoiled
brat & the one who deals with everything carelessly- not only turned out to
be highly ambitious but also very hard working and a kind human being.
Recently I
have met two young ladies who had the most challenging first impressions with
even more difficult body language and facial expressions. On appearance it
seemed that they were not paying any attention to what I said.
Rather than
asking me for guidance they preferred to chat and giggle with each other, which of course disturbed me. What worried me
was not their behaviour but more the consequences of their attitude.
Then I saw
their work... which took me by complete amazement because those two were the
ones who not only listened but also paid close attention to every single word that
I spoke. While I was busy judging them
they were actually working their best in trying to understand me.
In all the
above situations and few other occasions people have surprised me, and to be
very honest these were times when I am more than happy to be wrong.
So can we be really sure that our first impression is our last impression?
Cheers:)
Sonya Syed. (Day 404)
Comments