Get underneath the mask.

The other day I was sitting at my dining room table eating lunch. Between delicious bites of a homemade microwaved burrito I looked out the window to see my neighbor standing on her front porch smoking a cigarette, as she does every second of everyday. I, as I usually do, got really annoyed, because I was so sick of looking out of my window and seeing her smoking and staring back at me through my window. 

Then it hit me. I don't know a single thing about this girl. I don't know why she stands out there everyday. To me I just see a girl who is aspiring to do nothing with her life, but to just smoke it away. But maybe she has had a hard life that I don't know about. Maybe somebody abused her into becoming a person who doesn't want any other human interaction. Maybe she is mourning or depressed or new to town and doesn't know anybody. Maybe she suffers from bad anxiety and can't stand to go out and meet others. There are so many possibilities, so much life story that I know nothing about. So who am I to judge her?

Who am I to judge her with out knowing any part of her story? I want to challenge you, and to challenge myself, to not judge a person by their appearance or their attitude. But instead to take the time to learn their story, to learn their past, and to truly understand why they do what they do. I want to challenge you to find out what makes them tick, what makes them smile, what makes them laugh. Then find out what type of life that they come from, what are their greatest memories, what are their saddest, what makes their blood rush through their body, what is their biggest fears. 

I want to challenge you to truly get to know somebody, more than what you can learn from their Facebook page or their Instagram. I want you to dig for more than 140 characters of their stories. I want you to know where they came from, how they got where they are today, and where they plan on going. I challenge to read every page of somebodies story, from the first page to the last page.

I want you to get past the cover. I want you to get underneath the mask.

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