Period A



Most people assume someone has bad behavior or isn’t the type of person you should hang out with just by past experiences or something they’ve done. A lot of people are stereotypical like that. Every single person does, and will do, something bad in their lives. It’s just natural. In my opinion, I think people need to stop assuming these kinds of things about others because if it happened only once or in the past, they would want you to forget about it. But instead they are automatically given a reputation over one stupid, little mistake they did.

One cause for a person to make mistakes is stress. If people are under stress, whether it’s a kid in school or a businessmen, they will start to make decisions on how to cope with it and sometimes, those decisions aren’t always the smartest ones. If people are under a lot of stress at some point, say it’s a kid in school, he could start doing really bad in school. This could be caused by lack of sleep every night. If someone doesn’t get the right amount of sleep, they can get stressed out. If they get stressed out, they could start yelling at others which automatically says that you are not very nice. I know that happens to me sometimes. I’m not the friendliest person when I’m stressed out. And if I’m stressed during school, I don’t try my hardest which causes my grades to drop. Unfortunately, that has already happened to me.

Another reason for someone making bad choices is if they are dealing with something emotional or personal. If someone has passed away recently, one of the relatives could not know how to cope with their loss. If someone has had a family issue and they don’t know how to deal with it, they could start to drink. But if someone finds out about that, then the person who was depressed automatically becomes known as “the emotionally distressed person.” Even if they drank once to cope, they’re still given the reputation of the emotionally distressed. Another cause that has to do with social life is bullying. People get bullied and it just completely shuts them down. One effect of bullying is suicide. If one person is being bullied, and they’ve had enough of it, they might try to kill themselves because of it. If they do try to kill themselves but don’t succeed, people are going to end up knowing that one person as the one who tried to kill her/him self. I don’t think people want to be known for one little mistake they did or tried to do.

A lot of people can do bad things without knowing they’re bad. An example of this could definitely be lying. A little white lie may not seem like a big deal at first, but it can become one. If you continue to lie, it becomes one big lie that you’re caught in and have to fix on your own. A little accident, like white lying, can turn into a big problem. My mom always tells me that if you lie or hide something, it’s always going to be found out and people will eventually hear about it. If you think you can get away with things than that’ll back fire on you too. You can easily hurt someone by lying to them. I’m pretty sure no one wants to be known as “the liar.”

Most bad decisions are made if you’re pressured into doing it. A very good example of this is doing drugs. That’s a really bad decision that no one should make but unfortunately people do make that decision sometimes and it doesn’t help them in any way. Drugs are one thing people can easily assume a reputation for a person who took them. If you take drugs, even if it was once, you might receive the nickname “druggie.” Another reputation for bad decision making would be “the thief.” People who you call your friends could be the ones who steal and tell you to steal something to prove that you’re good enough to hang out with them. Something like that could get you caught and have a bad reputation until you learn how to change it. Maybe you were just trying to get something for someone else but couldn’t afford it. If you tried to explain that, it wouldn’t work. You’d still be known as “the thief.”

There are many descriptions of reputations people get just by the little mistakes they can make. To me, it’s just awful and if we’re one of those people who try to avoid trouble, it’s not going to work. No matter how hard we try, we’re going to end up doing something bad. But, even if people do make bad choices, it doesn’t make them bad, it only makes them human.