We say that judging is human, and that judging is normal. We say that
everybody judges everybody. That we all somehow hate each other. And
the problem is, we're right – we all somehow hate each other, we
all judge each other, and judging is, indeed, human and normal. But
the mere fact that judging is human and normal doesn't justify it at
all.
It happens every moment of every day – we judge someone's actions
by our opinion of the said person, not by the reasons behind the
action, or by the motivations, or by the outcome. We label people as
“selfish”, “weird”, “annoying”, “hypocritical” and
even “kind” or “good” not because of their actions and their
reasons, but by how those actions affected us. When someone does
something that seems selfish to us, we label that person as being
selfish, even though what he did was the most selfless thing in the
world. And by the same logic, we think that everybody who is kind to
us is always kind at heart too.
We fail to realize that what we believe and what we think isn't
always the ultimate truth. The way an action affects us does not
define that action at all. For most people, actions
speak louder than words. And they might. Hell, they often do. But
even though actions speak
louder than words, they never speak louder than reasons.
This is something we should remember every time we put a label on
something. Before we criticize someone, we should be absolutely sure
we comprehend exactly what happened, in the most objective way
possible.
Yet this is a little tricky. It's
hard to “put ourselves in someone else's shoes”, as the saying
goes. It's incredibly challenging to consider someone else's point of
view. And it's not even about asking “what would I have done in
his/her position?”. That's a weak question, because what I would
have done isn't necessarily the right thing to do. So rather, ask
yourself “given circumstances, given the state of the person who
did whatever it is he/she did... was the action justified?”.
Because this implies that even though whatever it was that the person
did wasn't the best option, it could have still been justified by his
or her circumstances.
What I'm trying to say is... it's
important to give someone the benefit of the doubt. Because you never
really know what actually happened unless you stay for a little while
and try to understand the whole story. Because behind every action,
there are reasons: priorities, beliefs, opinions, relationships, and
so on. Behind everything someone ever does, there's a reason that
made him or her go through with it.
So, my point isn't that we
shouldn't judge people at all – that's impossible. My point is that
when we do judge, we should keep in mind that something, somewhere,
triggered what we're judging. And that maybe, in the context of that
something, and that somewhere, we can understand and we can accept
some things that we wouldn't have understood and accepted otherwise.
Because people really do surprise
you – you never know just how kind that person you labeled
“selfish” is. You never know just how smart the person you
labeled “stupid” can be. Because every day, you, too, are labeled
as being “selfish”, “stupid”, “weird” - sometimes because
you really were, and sometimes, even though you weren't. And you do
know just how frustrating it is when your reasons are not properly
understood. And exactly because you know, you should consider trying
to be more flexible when it comes to your opinions of other people.
Articol scris de
Raluca-Ioana Vacaru, XIB
Fotografie preluata de la: http://itswaypastmythoughts.blogspot.ro
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