Our Sixth Sence--Fact or Fiction

I’m friends with a neighbor, whenever he knocks on the door, the dog run to the front door, her fur goes up and she gives this low threatening grown. Mrs. K. is not too fond of him either. She thinks the dog knows something and has a right to be suspicious. Do the two share some common intuition of this person’s character or agenda? Isn’t it a dog’s nature to be distrustful? Do they have some sixth sense that we human’s only have an inkling or completely lack?

Are you a good judge of character? Do your first impressions determine how you will treat someone for the time of your interaction or relationship? Or do you give people the benefit of the doubt, and let the course of time determine your opinion of their character? Luckily Mrs. K. and I hit it off pretty good during the course of our very early relationship that began forty-five years ago this month. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t be writing this blog. Would our relationship have been the same had she known that I don’t finish projects in a timely manner, leave stuff lying out or that I go on my own program and don’t consider others? I’m very glad she didn’t know the "real" me—or was willing to try and change me.

I in turn don’t try to figure people out; I let them "evolve" into the characters they become. My interaction with them changes as they change. If things are going OK then that is the way our relationship will interact; this is especially true at my job. If they turn out to have a bad day (or week, or month) then I keep out of their way; I try not to "press the issue."

Each us of has our own method of handling our determination of another’s character and how it will affect our lives or day-to-day interaction with them. We have found what works best for us and then go with it. Perhaps it is a throwback to another more primitive time when we had only seconds to make that life or death decision, which saved our lives. In some cases this sixth sense in still in effect for cops and soldiers who encounter dangerous decision making choices everyday.


K.