Right after I dropped out of high school, it was a nightmare for me to go out in the morning. Whenever I entered clothing stores with my mom, about 6 out of 10 clerks asked us how old I was because, at the time, every high school student was supposed to be at school. At first, I told them the truth: I quit school. However, their unexpected reaction hurt both me and my mom’s feelings. There were two types of clerks. One was the situation controller, who was trying to change the subject, saying things like, “These days, many students quit school on purpose.” or “A son of my friend did that, too.” The other was the interviewer, who asked further questions about my quitting. I got tired of those same responses, so I stopped saying the truth to them. Instead, I just said that I was preparing for the university entrance exam and evaded the questions.
  People tend to generalize everything. They assume that teenagers must be students and people in their 20s must be in a university. People who are not in those circles, such as teenage dropouts like me, or people in their 20s who don’t go to university, are naturally considered to be non-existing people or outsiders. Also, these kinds of stereotypes can be applied to people who have a distinctive appearance, like having tattoos or abnormal styles. They treat those people as thugs and often try to avoid them.
  Questions based on prejudice are irritating. These questions start with a somewhat naive purpose: why did you quit school? Or why did you go to university and get a job right away? If questions wouldn’t cross this border of bias, I would dare say that this world would be such a beautiful place to live in. However, it is so hard for some people to live in this world because there are tons of people everywhere who are nosy and try to hurt other people’s feelings. They give useless advice, such as, “You should have gone to school.” or “You should change your strange style, otherwise people will judge you negatively.” The problem is that they think these are helpful bits of advice even though it actually only hurts the target of the advice.
  People should have more tolerance, just like the saying, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ It refers to a person who has a different style, a person looking like a student who is shopping in the morning, or a person who got a job instead of going to university. If people treat each other with this in mind, “Does it matter to me?” this society will take a step forward to a better place where people embrace people with different lifestyles.