What Do You Bring Into Your Life?

Growing up, I learned that people can hurt me and I was hurt often.  So it is no wonder that as a younger adult I looked at most of humanity with quite a bit of suspicion.  I never felt as though other humans could be trusted to do the "right" thing and certainly I could not trust other humans to actually go out of their way to be nice to meaningless strangers.

And thus I find it quite odd that one day, after finally getting dressed from head to toe as a girl that the idea popped into my to get out of the house. It was really strange.  The idea of going out in public had never occurred to me and it is not as though I had some secret love for most of humanity.  As I stated in fact I really did not like others very much.

But for some reason, once I got fully assembled in all of my feminine gear I felt that I had to get into the world as so I shoved myself out of the privacy of my safe house and out into the harsh cold world.  It took quite a bit of time for me to relax and begin to enjoy myself but eventually I did.  Apparently I was quite the odd one as in going out of the house, I did seek the security of a "safe" place.  I have never been to a LGBTQ friendly location.  I have always just gone to wherever I wanted to go.  At first it was mostly museums, and restaurants, and shopping, but now it is anywhere and everywhere.

And the absolutely weirdest thing has happened along the way... I have had my eyes open to the beauty that is humanity.  I no longer see humanity as this mass of faceless, hurtful, uncaring, meanies!  Why?

I see the little things that people do, that they don't need to, but that so many of them choose to.  On some of my recent travels around California (from southern to northern from the coast to the valley) here are some of my experiences:

- the lady at the sock store who complemented my cute new Coach purse and began a conversation about how she can't ever seem to make into that store
- the guy at the hamburger restaurant who learned over my shoulder and complemented me on my cute pink sneakers
- the lady at the gas station who complemented my earrings
- the conversation with the guy at McDonalds about the lid he was offering me for my cup
- the McDonalds cashier who complemented the color of my nail polish
- the lady at Black House - White Market who when she saw my driver's license said "Wow, you do a great job at this!"
- the lady who let go of the door without holding it opened for me and stopped and apologized when I came out of the door
- the Clinique sales ladies who almost always offer me some free items

These are just a few of the examples from my various travels.  Along the way as well, I have never been harassed, pestered, annoyed, plagued, etc.

My point is that while I thought I would experience the worst in humanity, I have actually seen the best in humanity.  So much so, that I have realized I have always misjudged humanity.  I always thought that people were basically evil, or at least bad, but really people are basically good.

But I would have never seen that people are good, if I waited for them to show me.  By not trusting people, that is what I was putting out there, and that is what people proved to me.  But by putting myself out there and being true to myself, humanity has stepped up and proved to me that people are good, kind, and nice, and will often go out of their way to be a good person.

Okay, I am certainly not an idiot and I don't think that there are no bad people out there, but enough people have shown me that people are good, that I am willing to generalize that people are actually good.  Some people aren't but as a whole, humanity is a great bunch of people.

Get out there folks.

Love yourself.

Trust yourself.

Have hope in humanity, they may just surprise you.