One of my favorite quotes is from an animated version of the Swan Princess. The prince tells her she’s beautiful. She asks, “What else?” And, like an idiot, he asks, “What else is there?” (His right hand man says, “You should write a book. How to insult a woman in four syllables or less.” That’s my actual favorite part, but not the point right now.) He was so focused on what was in front of him that he didn’t think to look for anything else. He didn’t think to look deeper.
I get into that same trouble a lot. One of my best friends I had known for years, and only about a year ago learned how awesome she is. When you’re starting a new friendship it’s really easy to think you’ve just figured people out. Especially with people you’ve known for a long time. You think you know everything about them, but it’s good to step back and look at them every once in a while. You never know how they’ve grown, or what they’ve learned. Sometimes it pulls you closer together, and sometimes it pulls you farther apart.
This post was really more supposed to be about people in general. Not just growing friendships. Especially people that are musicians, or artists, or even just people who are good at something specific. I don’t know about you, but I always kind of put those people up on a pedestal. Not intentionally, I just see them and kinda think they’re better than me because of what they can do. It’s stupid, I know, but bear with me.
With these people, up on their pedestals, we see a version of them that appears perfect. That’s hogwash. Those people that seem “so special” are just regular people. They laugh, they cry, they get frustrated. They don’t think they’re better than other people, and sometimes (more like always) they get tired of people thinking they do.
This post is about me learning that people are people, no matter what they do. The one thing they do isn’t they’re whole world (most of the time), it’s not all they do, or think about, even if it occupies most of their thoughts. People, are just people. And they’re usually pretty different from who you think they are.