People are, by their nature, shaped by their experiences. And not just the experiences we have personally lived through. We are creatures of story, and when we hear other people's stories, we are changed by them. We are moved by tragedy and by hope and by love and fear. These emotional responses build up expectations. That the next time we are faced with a similar situation, the outcome will be the same.
And yet, this is often not the case! Not only do we tend to internalize one bad experience, and then make the assumption that it will always be a bad experience, but we also take statistics to heart: if something is bad for 99% of people, then it is ultimately bad and we should make it go away.
But we are seriously limiting our experiences and understanding by allowing our expectations to shape our reality! When we go into a situation expecting a given outcome, we are more likely to create the very thing we may be fearing. This is the basis of all law of attraction, affirmations and vision work. When we see it in our head, our subconscious will either work to make it real or interpret the results that we get in such a way that we feel like what we thought would happen actually did (even when it didn't).
This is cutting us off from a whole world of outcomes! Life is tricksy, and what has happened in the past isn't always going to happen. Hope is built around the idea that things can change for the better, and that we always have a chance to shoot for the stars and reach what we are aiming for! There is no reason to chain ourselves down and stop our own progress by creating illusory walls that keep us confined to 'the way things have always been.'
We should obviously be wary and use our past experiences to guide us to make safe and smart choices, but there is a very fine line between doing this and limiting ourselves. It often comes back to our self-talk. If we acknowledge the risks, prepare for them, and make sure we have our bases covered...but then remind ourselves that "This time could be different!" we have made a step in the right direction. If we simply put on our rose colored glasses, ignore the past, and charge blindly forward, chanting loudly, "This time it will be different..." we are setting ourselves up for a different kind of failure.
But we also need to keep in mind that just because something isn't good for a lot of people, doesn't make the thing itself bad. That would be like saying that if most people are allergic to peanuts, they must be poison and we should stop all people from eating them, even the people who aren't allergic! This sounds ridiculous, when worded this way, but I run into this very argument time and time again.
Sometimes, it's not even the thing at the base that is the actual problem, but the systems and situations that have grown up around it. Take, for example, the problem with people being addicted to prescription pain medications. In many places, this is a real and serious problem. Not only is it dangerous to the person addicted, but it can ripple out and cause many other problems. But most people realize that it isn't the actual pain medications themselves that are the problem. And that those very same medications can make someone else's life tolerable, when used correctly!
One very common area where this type of generalization appears is when talking about religion. There are many fanatical religious groups who give their root religion a very bad name. Many people lump them all in together...when talking about other people's religions! How many times have you seen someone call all Muslim's terrorists lately? And then, in the same breath declare that you Westboro isn't a 'real Christian' church, and shouldn't be associated with Christianity. Or, they look at the many prominent Christians who are pushing to enact laws based solely on their own religion (and directly limiting other people's religious and personal choices), and say "Look, see, obviously organized religion is bad and no one should practice it!"
I am not saying that we should allow free reign to people (or groups) on the off chance that they aren't going to abuse the power they are given. Of course we want to protect innocent people from the machinations of those in power, when they are intent upon preying on those who can't protect themselves. But we also shouldn't judge things by their titles and names, but by their actions instead.
Right now, we are in a time of pretty serious political unrest. There are accusations on all sides that the other side is corrupt and 'out to get us'. And there is so much misinformation flying around, it can be hard to see what is actually going on, especially if you consider that false information is being deliberately spread to distract and obscure what is actually going on. But I think we owe it to ourselves, to each other, and to future generations, to take the time to really seek out the truth, to look and see the bigger picture (instead of watching the flashy distractions) and to determine what is the heart of the matter.
When we look closer, we often find that what we thought was real, isn't. We may be closer or further from the truth, but we won't know until we really look. And in order to see what is there, we have to accept the full spectrum of possibilities. We can't go into it thinking that all politicians are corrupt, or we may not see the good that some people are doing. We can't think that Christianity is all about making everyone else conform to their ideals, or we won't see the many charitable and kind acts that many Christians do.
Generalizations can be useful, but only to a point. They are like a temporary shield, that protects us long enough for us to find out the truth of the situation. If you approach every dog you meet with caution, until you see whether it is friendly or not, your chance of getting bitten is much lower than if you just run up and try to play with every dog you meet. But if you run away from every dog, because you got bit once when you were a child, you may never experience that singular affection that dogs are capable of sharing with us!
We want to label things, by nature, because it makes it nice and tidy in our heads. If we can put everything into a nice little box, with a name, and description, we don't have to think. We don't have to examine and interpret. We can just look and say, "Oh, that's a woman, they are meek and can cook, and wear pink and are good with children." When we see a woman who doesn't fit into our nice little box, our mind rebels against it. We start to come up with weird justifications, ways of explaining why she isn't a 'real' woman, just because we don't want to change the labels on our boxes. We don't want to have a box that just says, "Woman: qualities may vary!" because that is scary to us. If we can't define something, we don't know how it will behave, and that level of unknown is very uncomfortable.
Learning to be open to the truth means accepting the randomness. It means allowing things to vary from the 'norm' and still be in the same box or label! It means adjusting our definitions of things as we go, as we learn more about a specific thing, as we understand how it's particular essence manifests.
But it is so rewarding, because we have opened up a whole world of amazing, different, wonderful things! Things that we wouldn't have seen or accepted if we needed everything to fit in our standard sized boxes. So, start looking at the world around you. Seek out the things that don't quite match your expectations, and instead of looking the other way, or repeating that same old description that you have always used, see what is truly there! Allow yourself to experience the full spectrum of existence and you will find that instead of becoming distressed when something is outside of your previous expectations, you will be filled with wonder.
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