It’s so easy, isn’t it? To hold ourselves in high esteem and judge others. To call ourselves right and others wrong.
It’s so easy to sit up on our high, holy throne and cast judgment on anyone or anything that doesn’t meet our standards. To face this issue, which according to one book is called “original sin”, it helps to look at the last four words of the previous sentence.
Doesn’t meet our standards.
Here are some questions for you to ponder:
- Who gets to decide the standards for everyone?
- How does it serve us to think that we have a better idea of standards than anyone else?
- Who are we, with our limited mastery of anything, to hold others accountable to our ever-changing expectations and beliefs?
Perhaps you can begin to hear some of the lunacy laced into this logic; perhaps you can see the nonsense wrapped up in judgment. Some say it started long ago with an apple and a forewarning about the knowledge of good and evil. Wherever judgment came from, almost all of us are afflicted with the power of judgment. The proof is in the pudding of everything from gossiping to killing and war…all based on a head full of judgments:
- Right vs Wrong
- Good vs Bad
- Appropriate vs Inappropriate
- Acceptable vs Unacceptable
To be fair, we need to recognize that judgment is a necessary skill for navigating our way through the world. But we’re talking here about how we judge each other, and the damage it can cause.
But you know what? When we learn to let go of judging, life takes on a lighter, freer, more enjoyable dimension. Find out more about how to do this by checking in with David & Tommy in this week’s episode!