Never Meet Your Villains?

You have probably heard the adage, "Never meet your heroes." It warns us that we might be disappointed if we meet someone we admire from a distance. Your real-life experience of them may not align with the image you had of them in your mind. They might be rude, self-centered, or not what they advertised. It could be an actor, politician, or even a professional athlete. Many of us would rather keep the image of that person in our head rather than accept the disappointing, unvarnished truth.

What about the flip side of this idea? "Never meet your villains.”

I'm not talking about obvious villains like despots, drug dealers, or Hawaiian pizza makers. I'm talking about the people you disagree with.

My experience has been that most of the time, people that I've considered villains are never that bad in real life. Believe it or not, that can be momentarily disappointing. All of us feel a sense of entitlement when it comes to our prejudices.

I'll never forget an experience I had years ago when I was a front desk agent at a hotel. I noticed the name of a notable politician on our arrivals list. "No, could it really be him?" I thought. A few minutes later, I looked up from my computer screen, and indeed it was! Ready for me to check him into his room. For some reason, I just couldn't hate him. We didn't have a long, drawn-out encounter, but I got a real sense of who he was. I tell ya, I had a hard time not liking him!

Meeting someone in person is always different than meeting someone in theory.

Friend, thank you for reading; I hope you can find an opportunity to find out that you don't have the full picture of someone!