I was watching a motion picture the other night, on the Arctic. There were some pretty exciting shots of giant icebergs. I watched those massive pieces of ice and I thought how very much they are like humans. One third of an iceberg is visible to the eye. The other two thirds you cannot see.
In dealing with people, and trying to evaluate them, most of us make the great mistake of assuming that the one third we see of a person is the entire person. This just isn't so. Most of us live behind a front. We act and we are what people expect us to be, but there is always that two thirds of a person that is below the surface, out of sight, and strangely enough, the part you can't see is the important part. I don't know why we bury so much of ourselves out of sight. I guess it is because we realize that only so much of ourselves is public property. There are only so many things that people can do for us; there is only so much help they can give. From there on, it's up to us. Each of us has to deal with the problems that are hidden away out of sight. They are our own personal private concern, and must be worked out often painfully in the quiet turning of our own considered judgment. The next time you are tempted to make a snap a valuation of a person or a situation, remember that you are seeing only the one thirds that rides above the surface. Don't jump to conclusions on the basis of the one third of the situation you see. It would be a much happier and more harmonious world if we could treat our fellow man as we treat the forbidding icebergs, if we could show a little respect for the two thirds of each individual which must of necessity stay out of sight.
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