Who Am I to Judge?

I woke up early this morning, turned on my computer and anxiously awaiting for the internet to connect. I logged into my blog and clicked on the link for One Stop Blog World and checked out today's Sunday writing challenge.

To my surprise, the prompt for today was Judgment. Wow! If there was ever a topic I could right about, this was it.

The dictionary indicates that "Judgment" is the forming of an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion, as from circumstances presented to the mind.

All morning I thought about what I was going to write, and while my thoughts took me in many directions, my heart wanted to say this.

In one form or another, we all make a judgment about something every day. No one is immune to it, least of all me. I use products and services, watch certain television programs or movies, read certain books, eat a specific type of food, drive a particular car, etc., merely because I have an opinion about it.

Maybe we chose to do certain things because we have read about it. I read reviews about all sorts of things from restaurants to books. I even write and have had my own reviews published. I have an "opinion" about things, because I have either used them, experienced them, or have gotten to know them in one way or another. For lack of a better word, I have had an "intimate" relationship with them.

What happens, though, when we have an opinion about a particular person? Do we "judge" them because they are fat, thin, tall, or short? What about their skin/hair color, or how they dress? Do we decide to be friends with them because they are popular, rich or live in particular part of town?

Sadly, the answer to all of these questions is probably yes. Why? Because we failed to make a connection with or have failed to have a close or "intimate" relationship with the person before we passed judgment over them. Now, I realize that we can't do that with every single person we encounter. That would be an unrealistic expectation (and another excellent topic for which to write.)

It doesn't excuse the fact, however, that we have just caused a grave injustice by passing judgment on someone before we get to know them. We then make it worse by telling everyone we know so that they will have the same opinion. And to top it all off, we took away the rights of those people to form their "own" opinions in addition to taking away the rights of the person to whom that opinion is being form.

With that being said, I could have written a bitter diatribe about all of those people who have passed judgment over me before they got to know me. Seriously I could write volumes. But, who am I to judge? If I did, then I would be doing the same thing to them that they did to me.

It has taken me a long time to understand why, but admittedly, a favor was performed here. Their judgment of me taught me a valuable lesson - the importance of remaining true to myself. Their opinions don't really mean anything to me because it is my own opinion of myself that counts the most. If only I could have realized it then, maybe I wouldn't have spent so much of my younger years in sadness. I am not sad anymore...at least not for myself.

So, would you like to get to know me? I would really like that if you would. If not, I won’t judge you because you didn’t.



***I have written this piece for a group on Facebook that I joined, GBE 2: Blog On. This is week #19 and the topic is Judgment. Interested in more...click on the picture below to take you there.