JUDGE PEOPLE BY THEIR BEST, NOT THEIR WORST

Each day is life in miniature. You wake up to a new day of laughter, sorrow, joy, disappointments, hope, despair. This has been driven home to me more soundly since the inception of Street Smart, more than a year ago. We never know what the children have in store for us. Our recent decision to work on Saturdays, and thereby reduce the children’s time on the streets, was cause for another rebellion.

Though the matter was amicably sorted out by counseling , this protest was initially frustrating. We had smugly prided ourselves on being tolerant. What we forgot is tolerance means understanding, it is open to new light and is profound. It creates a foundation of faith in humanity underneath disagreements, thus preventing prejudice and resentment.

Tolerance makes a man make up his own mind and extends to others the same freedom. This minor upheaval taught us tolerance. It also made us realize that the children had garnered some degree of self assurance to speak up for themselves. Then we looked at this confidence with a degree of admiration. It also brought home Henry Van Dyke’s saying, “Judge people by their best, not their worst.”