About a year or so ago, at about 8.30 am in the morning, I was sitting in my office checking emails when I heard a frantic shout from my husband,” “Kriiiiiiiiiisssssssssss, come and looooooooook at thissssss!!!!!!!!! NOW! Do-ooooooo something!!!”

I rushed into the kitchen and saw my ex-husband as white as a ghost, pointing to something outside our window. I looked in the direction he was pointing and there it was … a massive 2.5 metre carpet snake climbing up our fence 6 feet away from us.

“Wow!!! Isn’t that incredible,” I said, in awe of it’s size and grace as I watched it elegantly slide its massive frame over our fence and into our neighbour’s garden.

Now, of course I felt obliged to let my neighbours know and their reaction was quite alarming. After the shrieks of terror had subsided one of them even said, “Can we poison it?”

Another wanted to get a shovel and hit it over the head.

And another said, “Poor thing, it’s a shame to have it taken away, it’s just that it makes me a little nervous having a little child an all.”
I spoke to my mum and her reaction was an intrigued, “Wow, did the boys (my sons) get to see it?”

(NB. The reason why my mother and I weren’t scared of carpet snakes is that both of us had been brought up on farms and seeing carpet snakes was a common occurence for us)

It’s quite amusing when you think about it:

How one person can look at something and see an evil creature that threatens their existence and somebody else can see it as a thing of beauty - a majestic creature just going about its business.

People have preconceived notions of what something is or should be.
Because a snake isn’t fluffy and cute like a koala many people are scared of it.

After all, snakes can kill people so all snakes kill people and because he’s big he’s even more dangerous?????

People fear anything that is different NOT because it’s evil but because they really don’t understand it.

The moral of the story …

People base their opinions on what they think is right given their model of the world. Everyone’s model of the world is different.
So …. anyone who goes through life obsessed by what others think of them is setting themselves up for disappointment because you just CANNOT please everyone all of the time.

What’s important is that you do what sings to YOUR heart and that you go with YOUR gut … not what you think everyone else thinks you should do.