Have you ever judged someone before? In all honesty, you probably have. In fact, just about everyone alive has judged someone before in their life. It seems like one of those things that just seems to come natural to us.
Many people tend to take advantage of this, especially the media. They use the fact that people make a habit out of judging others to influence and manipulate others. For example, look at the way people will starve themselves and go on unhealthy diets just so that they may slim down and conform to what society thinks is “normal”.
This creates a serious issues because it causes people to feel like they cannot be their selves. In fact, many people in today’s society have completely lost connection with their selves and don’t even know who they really are anymore. This can easily strip the joy from a person’s life and before they know it they are living someone else’s fantasy instead of their own.
Whether you realize it or not, your judgments can have the same impact on people. While you may feel like you are just one person with one small opinion, you must remember that your judgments are being piled on top of all the others that a person experiences on a daily basis. Therefore, one simple judgmental comment or thought might end up being the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
For this reason, we must avoid being judgmental at all costs. While it may seem easier said than done, after all it seems to come naturally at times, with practice it can be done!
We have no right to cast our judgments on to others. After all, we all have our own areas in life where we could use improvement. One person’s problem is no worse or better than another’s, it is still a problem. Basically, someone with anger issues cannot look down on an alcoholic or vice versa.
Keeping the fact that none of us are perfect, including ourselves, makes the whole process on not judging others much simpler. Whenever you find yourself thinking negatively about someone just think about times in your life where you could have made better decisions or could have done things better.
Perhaps the best place to start when trying to change a judgmental mentality is the actual spoken word part of the whole situation. It is important to eventually change the entire mindset. However, pushing judgmental thoughts out of your mind entirely is something will take many years of patience, effort and practice.
When you feel yourself getting ready to make a judgmental comment to another person, try and replace that comment with a compliment. Replacing judgmental comments with compliments is a great way of training yourself to find the positive things in people instead of focusing on the negative things. The best part is the fact that the more you do this the easier it will become. Eventually, it will become as natural as being judgmental used to be.
Never let your ego become too large either. It is important to have a healthy ego in life and be proud of the person we are. However, when we allow our egos to become overinflated it becomes easy to begin to judge others.
If you find that your ego may be a little too big for its own good you should consider finding a way to humble yourself. One thing you may want to try is talking to a couple of people from a homeless shelter. They did not all end up there due to drugs and alcohol as some people would think. Some of the people there once had lives full of wealth and happiness and then one day everything changed. It can happen to anyone and that is very important to keep in mind!
Another thing you may want to try is keeping in mind times in the past when judgment was cast on you by others. For example, many people experienced judgment throughout school. It seemed like there was two different types of people, those doing the judging and those being judged. If you happened to be on the judged side, you are well aware of how damaging it can be to our emotions at times. If you happened to be on the judging side, you are probably well aware of the fact that most of those people acted in that way only out of fear of being judged by their “friends”. Remember, just as you feel pain, others do as well.
We are all humans. We all make mistakes and we all have our own little downfalls. We are not better than the next person and they are no better than we are. We are equals and the sooner society realizes this the sooner we will all be able to live in peace and help each other thrive in the world instead of fight to survive.
Learn more about living a less judgmental life here.
