I was going to write something about my laceless shoes today, but that highly dignified topic will have to wait because as I was getting an afternoon coffee I found myself watching a homeless man who had set up residence at a nearby table.

Long dreadlocks encased his face and a desperately grunged hand held his large coffee cup. He didn’t look to be too much older than myself.

With his free hand, he tossed five tightly rolled balls of paper, constructed from sugar packets, as if he were playing with dice.

Each time, after they came to rest, he would pick up one or two, seem to tally his points, then toss them again. Roll after roll, each turn lasting no more than 20 seconds.

I don’t know what he saw on those faceless, imagined dice, and as I watched him, I didn’t know what I saw on his face either.

We shy away from such people, the vagrant, because they look harmful, are loose cannons, and we can’t always read them or their actions.

We don’t know where they’ve come from, what they’ve seen, why they’re homeless, what their daily circumstances are, and we fear them for it.

Sometimes, this fear is warranted; sometimes we’re just too set in our judgment to walk past that fear.

Now, I’m someone who is a big advocate of following your gut. If you’re not comfortable with a situation or person, if you feel any sort of danger, please, please listen to that feeling. Seriously. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way.

With that said though, I do think we tend to judge before that judgment is rightly formed.

I don’t know much about the paper dice throwing man I witnessed today, but I do imagine he’s had a hard life, and there’s no reason to dismiss him based on that reason alone.

Give people a chance.

And if you see a girl wearing laceless shoes, take a moment and imagine a world without laces. A world in which elastic exists and is fully capable of keeping one’s shoes secured upon one’s foot.

See, it all comes full circle.