During this time of year, most people love getting presents. There are a few odd people that do not enjoy getting gifts, but that is another topic for another day. But people love getting gifts, a big part of it is the mystery of what is under the wrapping and the intent of the gift-giver. It is hard to contain your excitement when you know someone who knows and cares for you has spent the time or mental capital to buy you something. They believe the gift will make you happy.

Now, once we get a gift, we have to unwrap it before we get to see what it is. Funny thing is, I know I do not care what the wrapping paper looks like. I have gotten gifts poorly wrapped, beautifully wrapped, funny paper, ugly paper, all kinds. I do not care! I rip the paper off to see what gift I got.

As far as gifts go, I think most people do not care what the wrapping really looks like, they just want to unwrap it to see what is underneath.

We place far more value on what the gift is than the wrapping. Does that need to be written again…we place far more value on what the gift is than the wrapping!

How come we do this with things but not with people? I know we have a mantra we tell our girls frequently, “people are more important than things” we do try to impress this upon them frequently, and I think in general kids do operate more like this than adults do.

As adults I think we tend to judge people on their wrapper, be that race, religion, creed, size, etc…before we get to know them. I know in education we tend to judge students like this before we take the time to get to know them as learners and as people.

I wonder why? It doesn’t seem that hard to know that people are inherently good, and generally want to do the right thing, no matter their wrapper. Everybody has a different wrapper, but everyone also has a gift underneath their wrapper. Some people it may be harder to understand the gift. But we don’t operate that way, we assume the gift is garbage and that the wrapper matters more.

So I challenge you. In 2017, don’t worry about wrappers so much, worry about the gift inside.