Judging Others
I am about to watch Judge Judy on TV. I have been watching her on and off over the past few years. There is this one side of me that thinks her to be just the cat's meow as they say but then on the other hand she can be quite abrasive. Both are traits that I can admire, yet there is something about one person judging others so briskly that it seems unfair. I think this and other judge related shows on TV give us an impression that making decisions of guilt or innocence are easy when in fact they are not. I fear that the young people who watch this type of show are quick to judge others because they feel like it's easy because it looks easy.
We are living in a judgmental world where people are quite quick to judge and tell whether someone is bad or good. We are so quick to judge others based on many things that are meaningless like what kind of job they hold, how much money they make or how much education they have. It is surprising to me how many times I am asked about those three things and now that I am retired I get to respond with "I retired from that world". It kind of feels good but I sense it is not enough information for others. In fact, sometimes they will follow it up with asking me what I did do and how long and all that type of thing. They still want to know what degrees I hold and what college I attended.
We judge others too often and I for one want to ask that we stop doing this. It is just a way we limit ourselves and we commit so many mistakes by judging others. We don't get past the degrees or the jobs they hold and we get so stuck in the surface stuff that we don't dig deeper. I would like to know what a person thinks about the spiritual state of the world or what their causes are. What they believe is valuable besides money and what they understand to be a state of peace or a state of tranquility. I want to start a precedence for asking people about how their heart feels in that moment. What hurt most in life and what made them the happiest they have been. Whether they know the secret to living a whole life and whether they love themselves as they are. I want to know more about others than is likely the usual stuff people want to hear.
I will never ever forget one person in my life that I met via another person. I rememeber being around this person five or six times a year and never once was I asked any deep question about myself of what I thought or who I thought I was. Not one question. This same person wrote me a seething email insulting me when she became angry telling me about myself as if she knew me deeply and profoundly. Not once had I been asked to share one single thing of value but here she was insulting me to the nines. I was exhausted after reading her letter and simply replied by making a note that she did not know me nor had bothered to ask and that she seemed to be coming from a place of anger. There was however a small part of me that was deeply hurt to the core. I hid that from her knowing that it would have been a waste of my time to say it.
Today I know better and as some would say I have learned some lessons in my life. Deep at the core of who I am is a spiritual good person that if someone wants to get to know they will love. I cannot make anyone take the time to know me nor can you. And so we must live our lives knowing who we are because anyone can judge us and tell us who we are and we can end up believing them. I look at the suicides like the one of my little sister based on what one man thought of her and my heart bleeds. I look at the people who judge and want to ask them to please take into account the damage they can do. A teen who ends her life because two girls unfriend her on social media or a boy who hangs himself because he did not make the grades in school. Judgement can be so harsh and so damming to others.
As we ponder our next move in life let's think about judging and how that effects others. Let's make it a point not to be quick to judge others or even ourselves. Let's make a pact to be just the opposite and be that person who bears good news to others and who smiles upon others who are in need of a smile. Let us not be so fast to judge and to imitate the kind of sarcastic and sometimes hurtful remarks we hear in the media. We are so getting use to the crass ways of the world that what we fail to see is how much it is hurting us. When we say something mean about someone it really is "like taking poison and expecting the other person to die".
Elliott Collazo Gonzalez
We are living in a judgmental world where people are quite quick to judge and tell whether someone is bad or good. We are so quick to judge others based on many things that are meaningless like what kind of job they hold, how much money they make or how much education they have. It is surprising to me how many times I am asked about those three things and now that I am retired I get to respond with "I retired from that world". It kind of feels good but I sense it is not enough information for others. In fact, sometimes they will follow it up with asking me what I did do and how long and all that type of thing. They still want to know what degrees I hold and what college I attended.
We judge others too often and I for one want to ask that we stop doing this. It is just a way we limit ourselves and we commit so many mistakes by judging others. We don't get past the degrees or the jobs they hold and we get so stuck in the surface stuff that we don't dig deeper. I would like to know what a person thinks about the spiritual state of the world or what their causes are. What they believe is valuable besides money and what they understand to be a state of peace or a state of tranquility. I want to start a precedence for asking people about how their heart feels in that moment. What hurt most in life and what made them the happiest they have been. Whether they know the secret to living a whole life and whether they love themselves as they are. I want to know more about others than is likely the usual stuff people want to hear.
I will never ever forget one person in my life that I met via another person. I rememeber being around this person five or six times a year and never once was I asked any deep question about myself of what I thought or who I thought I was. Not one question. This same person wrote me a seething email insulting me when she became angry telling me about myself as if she knew me deeply and profoundly. Not once had I been asked to share one single thing of value but here she was insulting me to the nines. I was exhausted after reading her letter and simply replied by making a note that she did not know me nor had bothered to ask and that she seemed to be coming from a place of anger. There was however a small part of me that was deeply hurt to the core. I hid that from her knowing that it would have been a waste of my time to say it.
Today I know better and as some would say I have learned some lessons in my life. Deep at the core of who I am is a spiritual good person that if someone wants to get to know they will love. I cannot make anyone take the time to know me nor can you. And so we must live our lives knowing who we are because anyone can judge us and tell us who we are and we can end up believing them. I look at the suicides like the one of my little sister based on what one man thought of her and my heart bleeds. I look at the people who judge and want to ask them to please take into account the damage they can do. A teen who ends her life because two girls unfriend her on social media or a boy who hangs himself because he did not make the grades in school. Judgement can be so harsh and so damming to others.
As we ponder our next move in life let's think about judging and how that effects others. Let's make it a point not to be quick to judge others or even ourselves. Let's make a pact to be just the opposite and be that person who bears good news to others and who smiles upon others who are in need of a smile. Let us not be so fast to judge and to imitate the kind of sarcastic and sometimes hurtful remarks we hear in the media. We are so getting use to the crass ways of the world that what we fail to see is how much it is hurting us. When we say something mean about someone it really is "like taking poison and expecting the other person to die".
Elliott Collazo Gonzalez
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