Use It or Lose It

"You gotta use what you got, to get what you want, before what you got is gone."-"the life"

I think this song was written about being a hooker. That's not the angle I'm going for. I suppose the message is still similar, though. We all have different skill sets and abilities. Sometimes the thing that I lack in, you can make up for and vice versa. But, what do you do when that is not a factor? What i someone is unable to see your strengths because of his or her own blinders and prejudice?

I was in a situation last week, where I could've been a scholar straight out of Harvard and the woman still would not have acknowledged me. She saw only one thing, what she wanted to see, which was a young, heavyset woman, and she was disgusted. The look of pure disdain on her face was almost overpowering.

What I really don't understand is how prejudice can be so blinding that it interferes in every aspect of life, from work to home and back. This woman had a job to do, and neglected it completely because she couldn't deal with having a fat person around. This makes me sad. Not just for me, but for people with anything at all that makes them different.

And it's not like it would've been socially accepted for me to make fun of the fact that she's a runner and super-skinny, but she can hate on my fat all she wants because we live in a country that accepts fat prejudice as legitimate. Prejudice stems from a nasty place of ignorance and hate. I'm not saying that the woman should've given me a huge hug and thrown a fat acceptance ball in her backyard, I'm just saying that she could've been cordial. She could've allowed us to have a working relationship.

Sometimes, you have to protect yourself from a person who is really toxic. Prejudiced people are toxic and I have no respect for people who think that they can adequately judge character based solely on outer appearance. I wish I did not live amongst such people, but I have no choice. I can't change their blind hatred and ignorance. I can ignore it or rise above it. Those sound like two good options to me.