It is dangerous and presumptive and utterly useless to judge. Most importantly, this applies to judging ourselves. I catch myself judging me all the time. It really doesn’t even mater if the judgement is putting me in a better light than is true or a dimmer light. Judging is a deceptively dangerous door to the unknown and unwanted. Implicit in judging is a value statement. Something is deemed better than something else. Anytime we place one thing above another we have to ask why. When we catch ourselves judging we shouldn’t just condemn the act or stick it in a box to never be opened. We should instead inquire deeper, why are we doing this. Often, we are allowing a fear or false narrative to whisper in our ear “here is something to worry about; here is something that you are deficient in”. It is usually a good thing to just tell that little voice, politely, to shut up. Even if that little voice is telling you that you are great, better than so and so, it is still not a good idea to give a platform to those little voices.
And really, who are we to judge? How do we really know what we assume we know? The vast majority of the time we are judging someone or something that we barely know if at all. Or we are extrapolating from other people and events. We are allowing our prejudices and fears to form the basis of what we believe to be true. I don’t know what it is like to grow up an immigrant, or what it is like to not know where you will find the money to feed my child her next meal. How delusional, how self-righteous, how dangerous a path?
The unnecessary and harmful chemical reactions that go on inside our bodies when we succumb to judging are bad enough. But, even more importantly, this is often just the warm up. We often find ourselves building a complete fantasy backstory behind the action or person because we keep listening to those nefarious little voices. This gives us the motivation all too often to act, to drive erratically, to post a nasty comment on social media, to break something, to bring the discontent in our minds into the material world. Even worse, if those around us aren’t strong enough to deescalate, we can find ourselves rippling outwards into the world, not with love and compassion, but rather hatred, mistrust, and violence.
And if we are finding ourselves judging others, we must first ask, are we really judging ourselves? The qualities or actions that we find despicable in others are quite often the traits or behaviors that we dislike in ourselves. Or similarly, it is something that we fear, like condemning the actions of the poor because we truly fear financial loss or instability in our own lives. Ultimately, seeing as we are all connected, all of us, the rocks and microwaves and oak trees, the CEOs and inmates, all of us, we are just judging some aspect of the larger “us”.
And if you feel that you still must judge, you find it so difficult to stop doing or you think that this is all bunk and you are happiest when judging, try this twist. Rather than judging the person who cut you off on the freeway as a horrible person that you would love to see get into an accident, decide that they simply have to go to the bathroom badly. Or decide that the politician that you did not vote for, who just got sworn in, will create such energy among his detractors to affect the change that you were ultimately hoping your candidate would bring. Look for a benevolent cause for the action you dislike. Look for positive hidden reasons behind the seeming injustices in the world around you. That speeding car on your bumper has a pregnant woman on the way to deliver a child!
What is the harm? We never really know why anything happens anyway….not even things going on inside our own bodies and own minds. We cannot really know why a person does what they do, or why a seemingly unjust development occurs in our life. The only power we have is to decide how we allow this “thing” into our life, if at all. Like all activities, it gets easier and more automatic with practice. Decide to defiantly, doggedly, assume the glass is always at a minimum at least half full. Always assume the best intentions and best outcomes, for ourselves and those people and objects and actions around us. It will likely not be easy. We will likely fall down and need to get up again. But it is the best path to happiness and health. And, when we do fall down, we must resist the urge to judge ourselves!
