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Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Judge Not. Not likely!

Several years ago there was a   comedian
whose catch phrase was "Here comes the judge! Here comes the judge!"

I believe these few words helped this person's career because  they addressed something that applies to everyone...we all judge.

We judge our spouses, our children, our neighbor's choices, the books we read, movies we watch, and  the performance of nearly every professional in our society.  We concern ourselves with measuring our choices against the choices of others and render the worthiness of each, either good or bad, without necessarily understanding the motives derived from the emotions, history, or psychic of the choice maker.

  Judgement is a natural and human activity and I have no problem with the act of judgement itself.  I believe judgement is part of our innate need to anyalsye and sift through the myriad of stimuli that bombards us on a daily basis in order to feel safe.

What I do have a problem with is when the people who are doing the judging don't think it necessary to hide the fact that they are actually doing it.     This "I am judging you now  and I don't care if you realize it or not" attitude is the basis of many troubled relationships in families, work places, politics and religions.  

 Many people are motivated by the fear of being judged.   I don't think my mother in law ever believed that  I actually made homemade perogies as I refused let her see mine because I knew I would be judged on their size, taste, and texture.   The same person's off the cuff comment(judgement) about how many weeds I had in my garden after I had spent 3 hours cleaning it out    resulted in her hardly ever being invited over during gardening season.

I suspect the fear of judgment is also the root of many a mother's lament of "Why didn't they tell me?"

Just recently I was caught off guard by some one's curious comment (and  the consequent few seconds of silence following my reply) about exactly when my husband and I were married and where we spent our honeymoon.  The little twinge of discomfort I felt as I answered was the signal to me that the inquirer was in fact in the act of judging  my moral state of being. Just  the act of asking demonstrated their belief that they had the right to know, and therefore to judge.

Consequently I judged the questioner to be rude, arrogant, and ignorant . But I didn't (I hope) let them know it.


“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers”--Voltaire





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