You Be the Judge

A good friend once told me that I would hurt her “at some point”, so she didn’t want to stay in a close friendship with me. I didn’t get it: “Everyone we are close to may hurt us at some point, that’s the nature of human relationships!” It took me years to realize this was her way of saying, “you keep judging me and that doesn’t feel good”.

I elevated judgment to an art form by choosing a profession where all I did was judge: My job was to look for things to fix or improve in companies, products and processes, so nothing was ever good enough. The culture of the companies I worked in was critical, so no one was ever good enough.

The world teaches us to judge. To be outspoken in the spirit of being helpful, or passive-aggressive in the spirit of being polite. We cancel each other based on an 8-year-old tweet. We either tell others how they can do things better, or sit in silent disapproval, which we delude ourselves into thinking they can’t sense. 

The person we learn to judge the most harshly is our very own self.

When we judge we can’t be creative - we’re too afraid. We can’t dare or try something new because we might fail. We don’t enjoy the moment - we’re too busy evaluating whether it’s good or safe enough to enjoy.

To grow, we have to stop judging, or at least be aware of our tendency to judge and learn to let it go at times. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have standards; it just means we don’t have to point to them all the time or think everyone should share them. Funnily enough, when I learned to judge less, I started caring less about being judged.

Sometimes things don’t have to be good or bad, they just are. Life doesn’t have to be hard or easy, it just is. People don’t have to be right or wrong, they just are. And so are you.

What or whom can you stop judging today?

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