At the above URL can be found an article by a woman maybe not widely known but massively talented nonetheless. Her article is about judgment of others. This is a very touchy subject in my opinion. This world in one form or another lives surfing a tidal wive of judgment. Me writing this right now will be a form of judgment. This world will always be full of judgment. Why? Because people have different points of view. Because of this, one person will always say the other is wrong. It's a way of life, yet, it does not always have to be such a hurtful one.
We tend to forget certain things in our moments of judgment. Like that the person we are judging has feelings. As Francis Shea puts it so perfectly at the beginning of her article:
"I live by the philosophy that if I am going to point my finger at someone in judgement, then I had better be pointing 3 fingers back at myself. I, most certainly am not "perfect" and I will be the first one to admit that I am not."
That is the number one thing we tend to forget when judging others harshly. Yes, the person we are speaking of might be so far from perfect it's hilarious but what about us? Are we the epitome of perfection? (If you think you are I would suggest promptly scheduling a visit to your nearest psychologist). The logical answer is no. We are not and we do not like to admit it.
That's right. We hate to be wrong. Many might be ready to admit when they are but there is not one person who can say that they like to be wrong. When someone stands there and tells you that you are wrong because of the way you are, that stings. It stings so much that you either rush to get away from the cause of that sting, aka the judgment, or you rush to attack back with your own. See how this can become a vicious cycle that could ultimately cause more pain than it's worth?
Francis Shea knows what she's talking about. When she says:
"I am beginning to wonder if it's even possible to go through life without judgment. Seriously, think about it for a moment. Every time you have an opinion other than your own about someone else in whatever capacity and you express that to another person in a negative way, it's possible you may be passing judgment on somebody else. You may not even know it at the time, but what may come out of your mouth could perhaps injure the other person in some way, shape or form.
I know for a fact I have been on the receiving end of comments that have not only hurt my self-esteem but had me questioning the love of the person who made them. I had to ask myself, when I questioned the actions of that particular person, was I being judgmental? Perhaps, I was. Maybe I could've dealt with my feelings surrounding the hurtful comment and not necessarily with the question of why this very important person in my life would want to hurt me, maybe then I would not have been judgmental."
What she is really saying is stop. Take a second and think about this clearly. Yes, very true is the fact that a world without judgment is not entirely possible. But what about a world without extremely hurtful judgment? That can be possible. I believe so, Francis believes so. How is that possible you might wonder?
Easy. THINK before you talk. THINK before you form an opinion. THINK, THINK, THINK. Learn to put yourself in someone else's shoes instead of just living only in yours. That person can not fully imagine how your thought process works, what is the driving force behind your actions. True, the same goes for you but that's why it hurts when someone judges you. Why wouldn't it hurt them when you are the one judging?
I myself was teased ruthlessly at an age where my self-esteem was just starting to develop. I was ten years old, in fifth grade, when everyone in my class thought it would be fun to make me the blunt of their judgment. Needless to say that was not at all a fun year for me. They teased, or in another words judged, me about everything. The true and the false. The false would be easy to get over as time went by. It was the things that were true that they poked at and that would haunt me for years to come. My self-esteem became practically non-existent. Depression would soon follow. My life would revolve around self-pity for years.
It's not fun. It actually quite sad. And this was done to me by kids who thought it would be fun. I'm sure some of them truly meant me no harm but they caused it anyway. That's why me and Francis, who's real name is Kim by the way :P, are urging you to listen. Things can be different if each of us tried their best to make it so.
Catch the rest of this writers wonderful work at Helium.com. You can now officially find me there as well!
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