Understanding

If you've been watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, you'll know that Lydia and Lizzie have finally made up, much to everyone's relief and joy. I know I have been very emotionally invested in this story, but one thing that stuck out to me was the intro to episode 87, "An Understanding."

Lizzie was in tears because of the awful hole in the relationship between her and her sister, and she realized just how much misunderstanding that had been going on. That's the thing about this story—while it is a love story, it's really a story about pride and prejudice. I love the LBD because they are able to focus on Lizzie's own prejudice, not just with Darcy, but with almost every character.

But I empathize with her, because being prejudiced is easy to do. I hate being judgmental, but I do it all the time. I assume that I know enough about a person's life to make decisions about their needless faults, regardless of their background. It's even worse because I spend so much time, through journaling and writing, exploring the ways that a person's past can affect who they are. Why do I forget it when I actually come into contact with others?

Recently there have been multiple instances where I hear, for the first time, a certain detail or story about someone's past, and suddenly everything clicks. Maybe I was irritated because I thought they had no good reason to be a certain way, but who am I to decide what kind of person they should be? And now that I've come to an understanding, everything about their character makes sense. And somehow I don't mind their faults anymore.

So that's something not only Lizzie Bennet needs to work on, but I need to work on it too. "Seeing from other points of view," as Darcy would put it. And reserving judgement before I come to understand somebody else.