Judging Others Or Self, Cont.
In this new (digital) age, where people are so “connected” on social media, when a person is out of the radar, it is easy to guess that it was a personal choice to stay disconnected. So, when I accidentally ran into an old friend, I was really eager to know why she had chosen to stay disconnected from all her friends.
I completely respect her choice of not staying “connected”. I decided to write a post about that conversation only because the reason she mentioned was rather interesting and in line with one of my previous blog posts. Judging Others Or Self
To put a brief summary of that long conversation here, she said she was a highly judgmental person while growing up. She boxed people into different categories and treated them according to what she thought was acceptable and unacceptable. As an adult, she ended up ticking off a lot of items in that “unacceptable” category. Hence, she considered herself unworthy of maintaining friendship with her younger self and everyone who knew her as that very judgmental person.
Amongst all the harms that being judgmental causes, the biggest one, I still feel, is that it limits ourselves.
That little comment that we pass in our mind when we see someone or something, without any further information, can have a huge impact on our life.
Excerpt from the previous blog post :
Why was this vice (of being judgmental) bothering me so much?
Here is the answer:
When I am judgmental of others, I am clearly telling myself that it is Okay to be this way and not okay to be that way. I don’t spare myself either. I keep judging myself vis-a-vis the standards and yardsticks that I have maintained in my mind for judging others. I keep rejecting me or accepting me accordingly.
When my friend told me that she missed her old friends, all I could say was, she was missed too.
Comments
We don’t have to like absolutely everything about our friends. There will always be things we admire about them and things we wish were different, but if we accept that we are different, we can at least talk to and learn from each other. That way we all gradually make changes – hopefully for the better, and usually still following our own inner guidelines of what is acceptable.
I am completely with you on that Anneli. If we can do that with people who are in our life, that would solve a lot of our problems I guess..
I have to admit that I think it is fine not to be connected via social media, because there are a lot of aspects about social media that are very unhealthy and counter-productive. But the people I know who choose not to be involved in it still stay in touch with their friends regularly. I think it is so sad that your friend has cut herself off from her friends just for fear of judgement, especially since she’s the one who is judging the most harshly. That is exactly what is wrong with being too quick to judge, I think.
Oh yes, i absolutely respect her or anyone else’s decision to stay away from the social media. Like you said, it is only that fear of hers that kept her away that bothered me.