Letter J: Judgmental

It's funny that this topic is the one for my birthday... 
I believe all of us have a natural inclination to judge ourselves and others too harshly. 

"I can't believe I did that."
"I would never do that..."
"How could anyone think this way?!"
"If a friend talked to me the way I talk to me, they wouldn't be my friend anymore."
"Can you believe they stepped out the door like that?"
"Can you believe they stepped out the door at all?"
"I'm a horrible person and don't deserve to succeed or be happy."

All of these are complete shenanigans. But, it's not so easy to turn off not only judging yourself, but making those judgments about someone else. In it's own way, being judgmental just gives us another thing to be judgmental about! "I judged them, how could I?" And the spiral begins anew. It's also very natural. We decide what we are as a culture and the 'other' is weird and unnatural. If our own thoughts and feelings about ourselves qualify as 'other,' we judge ourselves.

Take some time today and put aside the judgment cap and love yourself and your neighbors (meaning everyone) for the gloriously flawed and amazing creatures we are. Loving is hard and takes just as much practice as any skill to do, and especially do well--it's more than just an emotion. Get a bit of practice in today.

Comments

Unknown said…
Couldn't agree more-- if you're judging someone you're either thinking they're better than you, or you're better than them. Neither is good.
6:13 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Manly Muffin Why-nots

Image
I did something crazy today. I blame one of my favorite webcomics for it, actually, specifically, this page of it: The webcomic is Manly Guys Doing Manly Things and is one of the funniest comics I've ever read. It spoofs the most masculine characters in video/computer games and popular culture and is very cleverly written/drawn. And I admit, I adore buff guys. It's all Rosslyn's fault for introducing me to it, but I don't mind. Rosslyn read this page over my shoulder Monday evening and echoed the little girl, saying, "Why not?" In doing so she and the Commander's daughter unwittingly named the project: Manly Muffin Why-nots. Disclaimer: Please forgive the following photos; they were taken in a dimly lit kitchen at night with an uncooperative camera. Also, please forgive the excessive recipe cheats. I am a poor college student on a very limited budget. Now, I got a small pack of frozen strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries (blueberries weren...
Read more

Letter A: Anniversary, the Second!

Welcome to the first of my alphabet month challenge posts! Spousal Unit and I just celebrated our second anniversary at the beginning of February. We did so in our usual fashion: find a museum and a good restaurant and go! (As a note, we're running out of museums to go to.... we went to many while dating.) The destination we chose was the Utah Museum of Fine Art. We got there in the morning on a Saturday and they had a rather interesting exhibit on the use of text in art (collages with newspapers, using words artistically throughout a piece, etc). They even had a typewriter you could use and play around with words that others had already written. It had the standard amount of crass and thoughtful phrases on it. They also had many masking tape art displays: a mosaic and a ceiling display. Spousal Unit and I did have some issue with a tour. We did not join it, but I heard a tired old assumption about the lack of bathing habits of the Middle Ages (as in, they bathed once a ye...
Read more
I've been spending a great deal of time working on making decisions for my SCA persona. I grew up within the SCA; my parents had joined when I was ten or so and were avidly involved (or at least my dad and uncles were) ever since. I didn't really enjoy much more than the clothing until I was old enough to duck out of babysitting before I was asked. I went to Great Western War this year, and despite being completely unprepared, Rosslyn and I put on a half hour show at the Open Arms Bardic Hall. I took a few classes over the weekend and in general enjoyed being there as a vacation. While there, I took two classes from True Thomas the Storyteller (look him up, hire him, he's sooooo worth the money), "Fyrecrawling101" and "Coaching". I had some embarrassing moments (forgetting the words to a song--remember how I said I was completely unprepared?), but by and large, I think I grew a bit. I got bolder...I even learned a story to tell instead of being a singi...
Read more