Question: How do I stop judging other people and/or assuming I know what their life is like and how they feel about it, etc? What should I do when I have those thoughts?
Dear Mortal,
What a wonderful question, it’s something I find myself asking the sun on many mornings—How do I judge all of these people less? I ask the morning sun for advice sometimes…10/10 recommend. I first started writing my response to this question while lying on my bed late one sleepless night, and am finishing it here at my gym in their (covered) outdoor co-working space. My face is golden despite my legs having a chill, and the birds are singing praise above me in the rafters. I’ve mulled over this question in the space between these moments, and I am so honored and thrilled to respond! Let’s dive in by breaking this down into a few parts:
1. How do you stop judging other people? Let me first say with full, glorious permission—you don’t! Not entirely anyway. Judgments are built into our psyche and for good reason. Back when we were surviving on the savannah (gosh, how many times has this line been used to describe who we are today, lol?) our ability to make judgments saved our lives. Distinguishing the snap of a twig from the thud of fruit falling was pertinent, and under such grave circumstances see: life or death, assuming the worst is what kept our precious butts alive. What I mean to say is, we have a primitive tendency to judge harshly.
But alas, time moves and things change; we are no longer on the savannah. In fact most of us are so far from the savannah, some of us refer to twitter as the town square. Ha! Life is much more complex than on the savannah, back then you just needed food and sleep and some sex, nowadays we need respect, love, tenderness, to be seen, heard, self-expressed, understood, believed, trusted, looked up to, liked, desired, embodied, healed, etc. etc. The more we met our own needs the more our needs seemed to multiply and develop, meaning our judging minds have compounded multitudes to take into account. Nowadays, 99% of our judgments are not life and death, rather they act as a kind of yes/no, good/bad, better/worse, commentary on everything we experience. Needless to say, like so many of our archaic and annoying humanisms, we will likely ABJ (always be judging) until the end of our adorable, mortal lives—and not only towards others but especially ourselves. The trick, or the key, or the secret, however, is that we don’t have to take all or even most of our judgements to heart aka as objective truths about reality. We tend to believe that our judgements are facts, but really, just like on the savannah, they are a predisposition to protect us. They are a snap noticing of something that feels true, but realistically would require further research (experience) to see if it held any weight against the reality.
2. It is easy to assume we know what other people’s lives are like based off one or two sentences they say (tweet), or by how they dress, or who they vote for; all of which we often believe reveals who someone inherently is as an individual. But the reality is, we will just never know the full scope of someone else’s experience, we hardly know the full scope of our own. There are things I find out about myself in (and out of) therapy still to this day that I had no idea existed (which include both joyous and disgusting realities). Each of us are an archeological sight full of literal bones and hidden secrets; buried depths and grainy surfaces. AND we are also always in a process of becoming, thus positioned towards change, for better and worst—but really… who is to have the final say?
We are each illusions unto ourselves and others–especially so if we haven’t yet accessed our capacity to look inward with compassion. We are all on different paths of this inward journey, and we can never quite know where someone is on theirs. We don’t know why people end up the way they do, and even when we have an idea as to why, we still don’t know why. We are complicated and very weird and often scared. If we can start from here–that we are each complicated and very weird and often scared, regardless of all the other surface stuff, perhaps we may be able to offer one another a little more grace. Life is challenging, reality hurts all over—no one is void of this reality. Even the most corrupt of folks, the most despicable of characters, will bury someone they love and eventually die alone. We must remember we are all different and all the same.
3. And so, my advice sweet judger is when you have these thoughts, acknowledge you’re having them, which clearly you have and are and this is the very first but mighty step. It’s no small feat to admit that we are ruthless critics. And so now all you have to do is the very humbling, life-long work of remembering that you actually don’t know the truth or anything like it—not literally. Your own experience is as close to comprehending reality as you can get, and your limited and specific biological and environmental factors shape your perspective so precisely, that you will always see the world uniquely, beautifully skewed—and this is true for every single human on Earth.
All you have to do sweet mortal is remember we are all living, breathing beings having a human time; that we all bleed, lack something or other, and are still learning. Judging is the oldest and easiest trick in the book (the bible be judging hard af). It requires the least amount of effort, creativity, or care. And it’s no wonder we do it so often because there are now billions of us, and life is nuts, and we just literally don’t have the capacity to listen and attend to everything, everyone, everywhere all of the time. The task isn’t to not judge, but to judge cautiously and humbly. And if you want to become a judo judger—always turn your perceived judgments back on yourself to see where you’re doing the same thing, often (not always) somewhere you (we) are. We cannot use our judgements to know the sum of another’s complexity, but we can use them to expand our awareness and set boundaries accordingly. And the absolute one thing you (we) have any ounce of control over is how you (we) will go about being in the world, how we will align our own being with our own integrity, despite how harshly you (we) will be judged for it.
I love you. This question opened me up like a can of condensed soup touching air for the first time. Thank you for asking me.
With all of my mortal love,
Samantha Morgan
ON MY MIND:
I read Body Work by Melissa Febos. If you are a writer or want to write or like to read—this book is beautiful and inspiring. She encourages each of us to bravely and boldly share our stories no matter what. No Matter What!
I really wanna get off instagram, or rather learn how to use it that isn’t so draining and I am stumped and am still using instagram. All I know is I’m not alone in this and sometimes that feels like enough.
This article about how our mind shapes reality was mind blowing. It’s also relevant to the above Q&A I feel, because everyone’s mind shapes reality differently—and this is so important to consider in our judgements. I love when science feels good.