Friday 21 March 2014

To Judge or Not to Judge is Not the Question

Somewhere, sometime, you must have heard the spectacular judgment delivered on the requirement of “not judging”. Yes, that is what it is in itself – A judgment. Remember the number of times you have nodded in acknowledgement whenever someone in the circle delved on the need to “not judge people”. They were almost reflex-nods without even realizing that the judgment to not judge is also a judgment. But, more importantly, is it even possible to stay un-judgmental?

Take any instance when you meet a person for the first time in your life. Within the first few minutes of interaction, you have already made tens of judgments depending on how the person talks, dresses, walks, breathes, etc. Another example which illustrates our inability to “not judge” works on the way a person speaks to us. Let us take a statement like “Will you pass the salt please”. Most will agree that this is a common statement heard at a dining table. Now, suppose you are dining with a person for the first time and he utters this line to you. Let us imagine that the person shouts out this line threateningly. What is your reaction then? You either cower down in fright or you look at him threateningly, with a clear intention of breaking his jaw. Why so? Well, that’s because you have made a judgment on the person and are reacting to it. You did that automatically, without any prompting. If this is considered in the context of the above directive of staying un-judgmental, it paints a scary picture! How can you control something you are doing involuntarily? Should we then consider it a hopeless human situation and submit to the nasty circumstances that judging a person brings along with it?

Well, the idea becomes simpler when you realize that the mistake that you are making is not in judging the person. The mistake is reacting on the basis of a judgment too soon. If we go back to the dining table discussed above and imagine that the same statement, “Will you pass the salt please”, is uttered in a polite tone, the way we will judge the person will be diametrically different. As far as the tone of the statement is concerned, it may be dependent on a number of reasons. The person may be upset about something. He may not have been his usual self when he shouted. Then, our cowering down or threatening looks may not have been an appropriate reaction. But, as mentioned earlier, the judgment will be passed instantaneously and involuntarily. Hope comes with the realization that the judgment is not the real problem. The real problem would occur if you proceed with your actions based upon this judgment and stay away from the person forever, or lean over the table and actually land a punch on his jaw! If you allow some time on every judgment before acting on it, the ensuing situations would be much better.


Thus, the real question is not whether you should judge or not – if you are honest with yourself, you know that you WILL judge! The question is whether you allowed enough time before acting on your judgment or did you jump into conclusions?  Now, though most judgments prove to be wrong with time, some of them are spot on at first strike (which should be made sure of by giving them time). You may then need to cower down or throw that punc..err sorry.. threatening look anyways! What would you do?  

2 comments: