After reading “Us and Them” by David Sedaris, I took a moment to reflect on myself. In Sedaris’s essay, he paints a picture of his younger self, spying on and scrutinizing a family unlike his own. This family, the Tomkeys, did not have a television and in young Sedaris’s mind, made them alien to him — in other words, they aren’t normal. Everyone, including myself, have ran into a person or perhaps a group of people unlike ourselves. This could be by the way they dress or how they talk or even what hobbies they’re into. First impressions play a lot in determining how we view someone, and in the case of Sedaris with the Tomkeys, creating a false image of them. Living without a television meant living with ignorance in isolation to Sedaris, young and naive at the time. He says, “It occurred to me that they needed a guide, someone who could accompany them through the course of an average day and point out all the things they were unable to understand” (Sedaris, 1). Reading this sentence actually angered me for the fact that he assumes that without a TV, they need a person’s help to be able to put things into context and understand what’s going on in the world. He regarded having a guide as a need, as if they would be unable to progress through the day without one. Understandably, as a child at the time, his view of the world was skewed and so I cannot put the blame on him entirely for this. At the same time, I’m sure there were moments in my life when I made false assumptions about someone based on a predetermined notion of them. Growing up, I learned to not trust in my first impressions and to give people the benefit of the doubt. I believe that this is just part of becoming more mature and learning to be more open-minded. I attribute most of this to the environment I was raised and the people around me, teaching me that there are so many amazing people in the world and I just need to be open to meeting them. On a different note, the essay also makes us stop and look at ourselves. Despite not owning a TV, the Tomkeys still seemed like good people, leaving candy out on Halloween for others to have, even if it wasn’t the best. They aren’t aliens like Sedaris viewed them as. This view of them led him so far as to attempt to eat all his Halloween candy for the sole reason of not wanting to let them have it. When his mom tells him, “You should look at yourself. I mean, really look at yourself,” he feels foolish for being so greedy and selfish. At the end of the day, moms are always right and there were many times when my own made me stand back and look at who I am.