The little girl sat in the school cafeteria crying. Wailing really. Other kids paid no attention. After all, it was the “special ed“ table. Odd behavior was typical. But she caught the eye of a passing adult. “Peaches!” she wailed.
He looked at the trays of food. The fruit that day was pears. “We don’t have peaches today,“ he said gently. “Peaches!“ she wailed.
Not knowing what to do, he decided to take her to the office for a snack, hoping it might distract her. “Come with me,“ he encouraged. She got out of her chair and took his hand. But as soon as they left the cafeteria, she began pointing and pulling. He tried to lead her to the office, but when he stopped to look into her eyes, he said he could tell something else was going on. So he followed.
Down the hall they went until they came to a classroom – the room for the special ed kids. He opened the door and she ran in yelling “Peaches!” There, in a corner of the room, on a beanbag chair, was Peaches, her stuffed animal. Smiling now and clutching Peaches, she happily skipped back to the cafeteria.
“The look in her eyes told me I was missing something,” he said. “And If I hadn’t stopped to question my first conclusion, I never would have been able to help her.”
How many times do we jump to conclusions about other people and miss what’s really going on? “A decision is a conclusion based on everything that you believe. It is the outcome of belief.“ (CE: C24, S1, P2, L4) What are we choosing to believe about others based on everything we think we know? And can we stop ourselves long enough to ask what kind of peaches they really want?