I just love it when someone asks me a nice, sensible question! Here’s another lovely question from a lovely student.

Question:

Hi Ashwita,
I was following this recent post of yours about extrovert and introverts which went a little offtrack, and you mentioned, we are not comparing, and judging. That got me thinking, and I have been wondering – Is Judging a wrong thing to do ? Isnt judging someone a mere reflection of our own image ? and if judging is wrong, why is everyone doing it all the time ? Isnt it more spontaneous ? It need not come out vocally, but isnt it a thought ? and is that not involuntary ? How can we stop our thoughts from judging or not judging a person , as we are trained in our mind to do so.

How to identify from what is judging, and what is expressing concern or expressing opinion? I want a clear thought, Can you please help me with this?

Ashwita:

To say that judging is wrong, would be a judgment in itself 🙂 But yes, judging is not a productive process and usually tends to cause pain to the person judging as well as the person being judged.

We only judge others with parameters we use on ourselves, so being aware of the judgments we make on others can be a huge learning experience if we want to understand our own minds.

However, it is possible that you have confused assessment and judgment. The former is required, the other is quite dispensable. You are right though, that judgment has become quite natural to our behaviour – but i believe that that is not because it is really natural, but because it is a very early learned behaviour – one of the first things our parents do is judge us, so we learn it quite quickly. You can let go of this behaviour just like you would let go of any other habit – by observation and acceptance.

So what is the difference between judgment and assessment? Assessment is observing and making notes about the characteristics of a person. For example, if you notice that a friend of yours lied, you might make a mental note of that, and then take her words with a pinch of salt when she talks the next time. A good assessment is hugely beneficial in protecting oneself against possible harm.

Judgment on the other hand, is assessment + opinion. Now once you realise that this friend lies, if you jump to the conclusion that she is mean and horrible, then that would be a judgment. This would affect your behaviour around her, no matter how you tried, and eventually it might lead to problems in the relationship. The biggest problem in judgment is that it doesn’t take into account the fact that your assessment might be wrong. Maybe that wasn’t a lie at all, maybe it was said because of really dire circumstances, or maybe she’s honest only with you – you never know.

Assessment would be awareness of the other person’s flaws without getting emotional about it. It is based in the broad belief that human beings have flaws and it is perfectly natural to be flawed – it allows us to accept ourselves and others completely and allows us to love more wholly. When we are very judgmental, we tend to lie to ourselves about our shortcomings, because we have an image to live up to. This prevents real growth.

And I’ve just used a small example of lying but we know things can get a lot more serious than that. We’re a very judgmental society and we judge everyone from dark skinned people to introverts, unmarried people to divorcees, and even rich and poor people. We forget that our opinion really doesn’t matter at all to anyone except ourselves.

Ofcourse I know that you’re aware by now that judgments you apply on others, you also apply on yourself, so when you do the same thing you’re judging another about, this is how your own image of yourself will also look – and that will make it that much harder for you to love yourself. And when we make judgment, from my experience I know that we have to go through those situations eventually, in this life or next, to understand what that person was really going through.

I hope that answers your question 🙂