Do not judge a book by its cover…that phrase is said often, explained thoroughly but rarely practiced. As inexperienced children we repeat what is told to us but never do we comprehend the full meaning; this comes with maturity, experience, understanding and choosing to see the world from multiple perspectives. As humans, we are naturally biased but once you can take away that factor you have the ability to see the cruelty and the beauty of our society.

We are hypocritical, that was a new realization for me that I had the privilege of witnessing firsthand. Having these phrases, “do not judge a book by its cover” engraved in our minds yet, how is it still possible for our bodies to override these wise sayings. I say sayings because we have proven that they carry no meaning or value to humankind.

Judgement is an everyday practice that we say we do not take pride in, but how could that be true when all of the proof leads to the latter. Here is another saying we listen to, “everyone has a story”. So bluntly true yet, we do not stop in the middle of a hurtful comment to repeat to ourselves that the god honest truth is, everyone has a story.

The scale said he was overweight, borderline obese. His family did not see the reason for this but instead they criticized him and teased him to a point where he reached, a term we use as avoidance. He refused to participate in family activities, in public events, rarely ever looked up from his video games and he never got the honour of being shown true love from his parents. He was frowned upon, laughed at, not appreciated or acknowledged because he was never given the effort to try and be understood. As an unbiased bystander I understood. I could relate, but if you cannot relate to someone, to reach understanding requires time and work. I saw this boy, sitting in the corner on his third helping of dinner, as someone who suffered from pain. He was the book, judged by his cover, and I was the only one who saw his tears that were wiped away before they could reach his cheeks.