Letting Go of Judgment

Everyone thinks that they are a good person.  Everyone believes that they are doing their best to contribute positively to society and to make the lives of the people they love better and easier.  Typically, when people face conflict with another they feel that the other person is being unfair or ignorant or selfish or dismissive or even immoral.  It is hard for many people to see the other person's perspective as being valid.  People generally feel that they are good and right and fair and impartial and enlightened.  People often feel this way while completely neglecting the fact that while they are justifying and validating their own feelings and points of view, they are judging others for their feelings and points of view.

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter illuminate the fact that people are prone to judgment.  Scroll through your news feed right now and count the number of posts that are actually a form of judgment on other people or groups of people.  As of this writing, my news feed is filled with posts that are passing judgement on people for the way they parent, how they look, how much they exercise or don't exercise, that they lip-synced the national anthem, that they are failing in their elected office, that they support gun control, that they don't support gun control, etc.  I stopped scrolling but I am sure that I could add several to the list.

People want to feel validated in their feelings, opinions, and ways of life.  One of the easiest ways to do this, whether consciously or not, is to judge or criticize others.  Whether by gossiping with a group of friends, posting in online in the form of a Facebook or blog post, being directly judgmental, or quietly criticizing, most of us are guilty of this type of self-validating behavior.  But one will never seek happiness by passing judgment on others.  

In the words of the the Dalai Lama XIV, "I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives."  When we free ourselves from the need to be right and feel accepted and validated by others, we no longer feel the need to disprove them or criticize them.  We open ourselves to a different way of seeing them which doesn't spring from the need for self-serving motives but rather from the desire for peace and love.  We don't need to agree with others all of the time, but we can certainly disagree without making them wrong.  And when we disagree peacefully and without judgment, we will not resent the other person for their choices and for how their decisions turn out.  Practicing compassion rather than judgment will help to remove the burden of negativity, resentment, and even jealousy from our own lives.

I love the quote below.  When I read it, it really struck a chord with me.  Today will be the day.  

“How would your life be different if…You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the day…You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey.” ― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free