Originally Posted by Biker395

Hey ... that's funny. And not caring what others think is the biggest perk of being over 50.



If I've learned anything in life its that people are the same no matter where you go. We all want to be loved, respected, spend our lives doing something worthwhile, and at the end, leave the place better than when we found it. What is different about us are our circumstances, and those circumstances are what cause us to react differently to different things. And we're all at least a bit insecure and unhappy, and some wealthy and poor alike try to address it with whatever material things they can get their hands on.

I have an old version of the Boy Scout handbook lying around. And somewhere at the end in the section where it takes on difficult subjects like getting along with others and "self-gratification" (you should read it some time ... it's a hoot), there is a story of two boys leaving his home town to live in another.

On the outskirts of his new town, the first boy encounters a man and asks him what the people are like in town. The old man asks:

"How were they were you're coming from?"

"Terrible. Cliquish, unfriendly, and vain. I couldn't wait to leave.

The old man answered:

"Well, you'll find them the same here."

The boy wrinkled his brow and moved on. The second boy later approached him and asked the same question. But when asked about the people in his town, he replied:

"Great. Helpful, friendly, and fun. I made a lot of friends and I'm really going to miss them."

"Well, you'll find them the same here."

The boy happily skipped away to his new adventure.

The point is that the old man knew that to a great degree, the people you meet are but a reflection of how you perceive them. It's the observer-expectancy effect in action.