Public Narrative Essay

Growing up in New York City I have been afforded many opportunities that the average person has not experienced. New York City has a lot of culture and diversity to offer. I feel like I have learned more about people and life living here than if I had grown up in Kansas or Nebraska. Even though there is much to see and do here, I am far from knowing everything there is to know about being a complete person. I still have a lot to learn. Such an incident occurred last two years ago, when I learned the difficult lesson to not judge a book by its cover.
For as long as I can remember my parents have been telling me not to talk to strangers. I was not to talk to them, or respond to them if they talked to me. I was certainly not supposed to get in a car with them if they asked or accept candy if they offered. In New York City, there are a lot of strangers. To a child who knows strangers are bad, this made an alright frightening city a little scarier. As I grew, the fear wore off but my parent’s mantra, “Don’t talk to strangers,” still echoes in the back of my mind at times. I hear it most often when I am approached on the street by homeless people asking for change. In New York City this is made all the more troublesome because some of the homeless people I, personally, have been approached by have been drunk or belligerent. As a teenager, this situation can be unnerving.
One particular night, two years ago after spring midterms, I was approached by what appeared to be a drunk and belligerent homeless man. I was not in the mood to be polite or try digging for change. My tests had not gone well. In fact I was sure I had failed at least two of them and the idea of facing my parents with that news in a few weeks was not something I was happy about. His eyes were bloodshot, he was sweaty, and I smelled him while he was still five feet away. Before he could finish fumbling through his question I demanded to be left alone, acting belligerent in my own right. He obliged and stepped back, as I continued on my way without giving it a second thought.
Moments later a quiet, sober voice came from behind me. “Excuse me?” It was the homeless man. Only now he did not sound drunk, he sounded sober. He was standing upright, holding a clipboard, a pen, and jotting down some notes. He was doing all of this as he asked me if I was over the age of 18 and would be willing to lend the information I had just provided to participate in a study involving individual’s reaction to the homeless. I was 17 at the time, making his question irrelevant, but my primary concern was the overwhelming shame and guilt I felt. If this man had really been homeless and drunk, sitting in the gutter, I would have treated him that way without a second thought. However, because he was not what he appeared to be and was in fact studying Sociology at NYU, I had been discovered as the miserable person that I felt like that day. I felt so guilty and ashamed because I realized that I was immature for being willing to treat some people a certain way just based on their circumstances in life. It was a difficult lesson to learn.
That day remains vivid in my mind. I still cannot believe how horrible I acted. The shame I felt after finding out that the homeless man was not actually homeless still haunts me. Though I am upset that it was a lesson I needed to learn in the first place, I am happy that I learned it early in life. I still have plenty of time to correct my mistake and, no matter how I am feeling, always treat people with the dignity and respect they deserve. Because of the lesson I learned I will remember that everybody deserves that dignity and respect not because of what they are wearing or where they are in life, but simply because they are a person, just like me.