Other than being the worst driver known to mankind, I have another huge flaw; for the longest time I trusted the snap judgments I made about people and thought them to be true. Luckily through my experiences with the Missouri Association of Student Councils or MASC, I’ve learned to look past the cover and open the book.

While many of you enjoyed a long weekend for the Martin Luther King holiday, I ventured down to Lake of the Ozarks to be reunited with 100 MASC kids. Many of the faces were ones that I recognized. As I was reunited with my friends I remembered the first time I met them and the impressions I had.

The first person I realized misjudged was “boot heel” resident, Alexa. When I first met her, all I could hear was her southern drawal. She seemed like the personification of country music and I was not a fan.

The next person I misjudged Kennay seemed rambunctious and way too talkative. She told bad jokes, asking questions like, “If I put hot sauce in the freezer is it cold sauce?”

The last, Maddie, was immediately written off in my mind because of her outrageous beauty and almost ditsy clumsiness.

However, as I got to know them over time, one on one, I realized that these were the most unique, hilarious people in Missouri.

Snap judgments allow us to look at a person and decide how we feel without ever knowing the content of their character.

The lessons I’ve learned at MASC events translate well to my life at home. Sophomore year, I met Aly Copp for the first time. Initially, I saw only her physical traits and set my mind up, she was a person with whom I wanted no interaction. Over the course of two years, I was able to see past this petty judgment. Skipping forward to today, we spend nearly everyday together.

It’s an MASC tradition to close every event with a song. “Friends, I will remember you, think of you, and pray for you, and when another day is through I’ll still remember you.” Everybody participates, no matter whether they have a voice that fits in a choir. We join in because we are surrounded by a group of people who are our family. The people I’ve met in MASC have inspired me not only to be a happier person, but braver as well. I would not have learned this if I had trusted my initial judgments about them, their pages revealed much more than what their cover ever could.