A second chance to make a first impression

There is an innate charm in joining a new school or college. It's more than just the excitement of being in a new place or the opportunity to make new friends. I can best sum it up as getting a second chance at making a first impression.

All of us are in the habit of constantly judging people. It is a very human tendency to observe all these small details about the appearance and behaviour of other people and think about how much he/she appeals to you as a person, and as a friend. Everybody has a few personal favourites with respect to the traits we look for, but certainly there are some broad characteristics as well. For example, a heavy Indian accent like "Hai yevrybaudy, hai jaambie. You yenjayed yuvarself today-aa?" is a definite put-off for most of us.

And being intelligent (!) human beings, we are all bothered that other people are judging us as well. Hence we observe people, talk, take mental notes, and constantly try to improve ourselves. There is nothing vain or petty or selfish about making these little changes for sake of being liked better by our fellow human beings. We all want to be better people, more trustworthy, more virtuous, more dilligent and hard-working. Hand-in-hand with these things are the things that make a good impression on other people, such as being more athletic or sophisticated. Ultimately, they all contribute to becoming a better person, and feeling better about oneself, apart from getting other people to like you better.

The problem, of course, is that people have long memories. You may have changed from a pukka sambhar sadam - thair sadam eating Brahmin to a connoisseur of Chinese, Mexican, Italian, Lebanese, Greek, Thai and Continental cuisines but apart from your close friends people will not have noticed.

That was just an example, of course, and I'm not actually saying that people give a damn about your culinary tastes. My point is just that the first impression is the lasting impression. That is why there is a certain allure to going to a new place to live or study. You may have been a complete geek and a dork in your past life; you may have been a failure at studies; you may have been a wimpy loser; but you now have a chance to truly leave all that behind.

The only catch is that it takes a lot of work to be the new you. Few people actually manage to accomplish the change that they swore to bring about.

That said, I'd like to point out the price of making this change.

All things in life are connected. It may be one or a hundred degrees of separation, but ultimately every aspect, every characteristic, every attribute of you is intertwined. You will not realize it at the beginning, but when you change one thing about yourself, you are subtly changing something else. Perhaps something that you did not want to be changed. If you managed to change from a bookworm to a "cool" sports-playing movie-watching swimming-trekking guy, don't be surprised if you find your grades dropping. If you work hard at your written and spoken english, don't be surprised if your home appears too small for you when you go back. If you wanted to get rid of your shyness and improve your skills at interacting with the opposite sex, don't be surprised if the people you always considered your close friends seem to be drifting away from you.

Life is never easy. One can never fully weigh all possibilities and decide upon a course of action without some degree of doubt. After choosing the course of action, accomplishing it is a hundred times harder than choosing it. Smile and take it one step at a time, and hope that it will all turn out for the best.

Cheers,
Prashanth.