IN THE SHADOWS OF REFLECTION •//• From Judging to Understanding

One thing I love to do is take a moment to think about my life, my actions, and the things around me. I am someone who will take time to reflect on what I did or didn’t do, this habit of mine makes me realize my bad side and also urges me to do better.

About two years back, there is something I became aware of, it is almost like a habit in most people and I wonder if people realize that they are under this spell. I usually wonder about the difference between ‘sharing an opinion about something or someone and judging someone's system or something’

I was not really mindful about the difference and I often mistook judging as sharing opinions. Judging is something most people do without knowing, they do it like it is a system, and they conclude without having a full understanding.

The common reasons why people judge is because they are confident in their own perceptive that they neglect others' points of view. They are hasty to criticize people with their own beliefs without having to think about the possibility of being wrong.

To be honest, I have been there when I don’t take my time to look at negative aspects and positive aspects of a situation, I look at one side of the situation and I conclude on that. I don’t consider that people might have a different perspective and personality than I do but I just based my judgment.

I did all these in the name of “sharing my opinion”, but when I come to think of it, when reflecting on what I did, it usually turns out that I wasn’t sharing an opinion, I was judging. I didn’t think of the possibility of a tangible reason that made a person do what they did.

But ever since then, I have realized that I am indirectly judging people, I am usually conscious of what I say and how I think. I have always hated someone judging without knowing that I do the same thing.

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Now that I am conscious of it, I take my time to reason every matter, I try to have a full understanding of whatever is going on before stating my conclusion, and even if I turn out to be wrong, I don’t hesitate to apologize.

I now have an understanding of what “sharing an opinion” is, let me give you an example, let’s say I have a friend of mine who usually fails his examination.
If I were to judge, I would say “He doesn’t read that is why he always fails”, although this might be true but I didn’t take my time to understand what is making him not read. If anyone says this to me, I just say “We don’t know what he might be going through that doesn’t make him read”

Well, it might turn out that he doesn’t read because he wasn’t just serious with his studies and of course, it might be that he was battling with family issues like parent separation anxiety. Regardless of what the reason is, I won’t have any guilt when the true reason is revealed because I didn’t criticize him.

This has helped my mental health in many ways. Although I won’t say that I am now perfect in terms of not judging, I will say that I am trying, it is nice to spend time to reflect on yourself, look at your bad and good, and try to work on them.

Have a little thought about what happened, does really feel right? Are you really doing great? Are you aware that you are doing the same thing you said you wouldn’t?

Anytime, I spend a few minutes to reflect on my life, I can identify what needs to be corrected or what I need to work more on. We mostly realize bad habits or actions when we take time to reflect on ourselves. Self-reflection is something I love a lot as it helped me build a better me.