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I
grew up in a family situation in which judging others--and often
making fun of them--was pretty much the norm. I don't see
that as an awful part of who my family members were, for that's
what they learned somewhere along the line about how to treat and
deal with other human beings. Their judgment was more a
reflection of their own fears and insecurities than it was a
statement about who the other people were. It took me quite
a long time to realize just how inappropriate and harmful this
habit was, and it took me just as long to leave behind the habit
of judging others myself.
When I
judge someone, after all, I'm almost always looking at an
incomplete picture of their actions and their motivations.
It's easy to get angry at the person who just took your parking
space, but you know, there's a very good chance that he didn't see
you, or that something terrible just happened in his life that
keeps him from seeing things that he normally would have seen.
Our
tendency to judge seems to be based partly on our need to be
right--we see someone else do something that we don't believe is
right, so we judge them to be wrong. The problem with this
tendency, of course, is that our version of right is based upon
our personal systems of belief--and what's right for us isn't
necessarily right for others. We may be tempted to convince
ourselves that there's such a thing as a universal right and
wrong, and that we are the enlightened ones who know what that
universal right is, but the fact is that right and wrong are
almost always matters of perspective and of beliefs.
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Our
tendency to judge also seems to be based upon our need to lift
ourselves above other people to make ourselves feel better.
After all, if you just did something wrong and I can judge you
harshly for that, while I personally didn't do anything wrong,
then I'm somehow better off than you, I'm somehow more
compassionate or more deserving or more courteous or more honest
than you. And that, for some reason, should make me feel
better.
But
judgment really ends up being nothing more than a way to put more
distance between us as people. It's just a way for us to
find more cause for separation, more reasons not to come closer to
another person, not to accept another person fully, not to become
better friends with someone. Judgment helps us to maintain
our illusion that separation is good for us, our illusion that
there are many good reasons for avoiding closer contact and closer
relationships.
Judgment
keeps us looking at life from a "right and wrong"
perspective, without feeling the need or desire to understand what
other people may be going through. When I was young and I
heard judgmental statements, those words made me feel that there
never was a chance of becoming friends with the person or persons
being judged. Those people were worse than us, after all,
and there was no reason to feel closeness, compassion, or
friendliness with those people.
I've found
over the years that judgment on my part has hurt me greatly.
There have been many great people that I've never come to know
well because I judged them too early on too little evidence.
There have been situations that I've shut myself out of,
relationships that I avoided, people that I never met, simply
because I had this need to find something wrong in others.
Perhaps it was a defensive measure on my part, but I'm more
convinced that it was more a question of ignorance that kept me
from seeing things more clearly.
I try hard
not to judge now, and I find that I see many more brilliant things
these days, and I meet many more very cool people because I don't
allow myself to create the obstacle of my judgment between me and
anyone else. Life with little judgment in it has become very
pleasant, and I see people much more clearly and much more
compassionately when I know that no matter what they do, I'm going
to try to understand it rather than judge it. When I set
myself up as judge, then I put a tremendous burden on myself and
on others whom I expect to live up to my expectations. Life
is much richer when I rid myself of such a useless and difficult
burden.
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When
you are interested in other perspectives, it doesn’t imply,
even slightly,
that you’re advocating them.
I certainly wouldn’t
choose a punk rock lifestyle
or suggest it to anyone else.
At the
same time, however, it’s really not my place
to judge it, either. One of the cardinal rules of joyful living is that judging
others
takes a great deal of energy and, without exception,
pulls you away from where you want to be.
Richard Carlson |
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When you
feel offended, you're practicing judgment. . . What you
may not realize is that when you judge another person, you do not
define them. You define yourself as someone who needs to judge
others.
Wayne
Dyer
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The
thought of judgment, criticism and condemnation must,
in time, operate against the one who sets it into motion.
Ernest Holmes |
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If you judge people, you
have no time to love them.
Mother Teresa
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Judge a tree by its fruit, not by its leaves.
Euripidea
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People
hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.
Albert
Camus |
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To the
judgmental eye, everything is closed in definitive frames.
When the judgmental eye looks out, it sees things
in terms of lines and
squares.
John
O'Donohue |
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Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until
I have walked in his moccasins for two weeks.
Sioux Indian Prayer
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Whoever
undertakes to set him or herself up as a judge of Truth
and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
Albert
Einstein
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Our judgments
judge us, and nothing reveals us, exposes our weaknesses,
more ingeniously than the attitude of pronouncing upon our fellows.
Paul Valéry |
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It
is well, when judging a friend, to remember that he or she is
judging you with the same godlike and superior impartiality.
Arnold
Bennett
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It
is very unfair to judge
any body’s conduct, without
an intimate knowledge
of their situation.
Jane
Austen
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The life in us is diminished by
judgment far more frequently than by disease.
Our own self-judgment or the judgment of other people can stifle our
life-force, its spontaneity and natural expression. Unfortunately,
judgment
is commonplace. It is as rare to find someone who loves us as we are
as it is to find someone who loves themselves whole.
Judgment does not only take the form of criticism. Approval is also
a form
of judgment. When we approve of people, we sit in judgment of them
as
surely as when we criticize them. Positive judgment hurts less
acutely
than criticism, but it is judgment all the same and we are harmed by it
in far more subtle ways. To seek approval is to have no resting
place,
no sanctuary. Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant
striving. It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value.
This is as true of the approval we give ourselves as it is of the approval
we offer others. Approval can't be trusted. It can be
withdrawn at any
time no matter what our track record has been. It is as nourishing
of
real growth as cotton candy. Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing
it.
Rachel Naomi Remen |
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Judging
others will avail you nothing and injure you spiritually. Only
if you can inspire others to judge themselves will anything worthwhile
have been accomplished. When you approach others in judgment they
will be on the defensive. When you are able to approach them in a
kindly, loving manner without judgment they will tend to
judge themselves and be transformed.
Peace Pilgrim |
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Judgment
always rests in the past, for past experience is the basis
on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the
past, for without it you do not understand anything.
A Course in Miracles |
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Judgment
and Titlemax Customer Reviews: Comparably Reviews |
Georgia Reviews |
Titlemax Reviews |
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There is a higher Will operating most
efficiently in this world, although most
of us are not privy to it. When we make judgments that things are
not happening
the way we think they should, this is the height of
arrogance. This is acting as
though our way is superior to the Higher Power's. We're acting as
though we
know better. But do we actually know the cause and effect of
everything
happening around us? While we may share in creative power, until we
have
merged our consciousness in the Creator, we are in absolutely no position
to
judge when and how things happen.
Michael Goddart |
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When
we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice it is small,
but we do
not criticize it as "rootless and stemless."
We treat it as a seed, giving it
the water and nourishment
required of a seed. When it first shoots up
out of
the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and
underdeveloped,
nor do we criticize the buds for not being
open when they appear. We
stand in wonder at the process
taking place, and give the plant the care
it needs at each
stage of its development. The rose is a rose from the
time
it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times,
it contains
its whole potential. It seems to be constantly
in the process of change:
Yet at each state, at each
moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.
A flower is
not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud;
at
each stage it is the same thing -- a flower in the process
of expressing its potential.
Timothy
Gallwey
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Judgment
consists not in seeing through deceptions and evil intentions,
but in being able to awaken the decency dormant in every person.
Eric Hoffer |
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I think
of her every time I judge myself or someone else too harshly. How
do we really know the worth of our work? It's not our job to judge
the worth
of what we offer the world, but to keep offering it regardless. You
might
never know the true worth of your efforts. Or it could simply be too
soon to tell.
Regina Brett
Be the Miracle |
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Withhold judgment
and criticism. The human way is to judge in haste the
actions of others, but the divine way is to remain quiet and loving.
White Eagle |
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Constantly
I am having to fight and overcome my prejudices because I
realize that first impressions and judgments are often misleading.
Harvey Day |
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quotations
- contents
-
welcome
page
-
obstacles
the
people behind the words
-
our
current e-zine
-
articles
and excerpts
Daily
Meditations, Year One - Year
Two - Year Three
- Year Four
Sign up
for your free daily spiritual or general quotation ~ ~ Sign
up for your free daily meditation
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We judge ourselves by what we feel
capable of doing,
while others judge us by what we have already done.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
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The less harshly we
judge ourselves,
the more accepting we become of others.
Harold Bloomfield |
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While people judge others from
their own moral standpoint,
the wise person looks also at the point of view of another.
Hazrat Inaya Khan |
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People
judge us by the success of our efforts.
God looks at the efforts themselves.
Charlotte Bronte |
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I've
heard many people choose not to judge as if judgment is some form of evil.
It is important to remember the difference between judgment (gloating over
someone else's inadequacies or differences) and discrimination. The
discriminating eater chooses specific, healthy foods for their well-being.
Eating a salad is not a judgment of gravity-challenged individuals.
It is a
self-sustaining choice. If you do not wish to be around smokers and
their
smoke--discriminating in such a way that keep you smoke-free isn't a
judgment
about smokers--it is a demonstration of one's courage to choose for self.
Joe Vitale
Life's Missing Instruction Manual |
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I've found that people never
change behaviors in a meaningful
way when the change arises from self-judgment.
Tara Brach |
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Who we are as spiritual beings is far beyond judgment.
In the eyes
of God, you are perfect. All the things for which you believe you
deserve condemnation or deem yourself a failure are meaningless.
Your wholeness is intact, and your worthiness was never in question.
You do not have to compete to prove yourself, for you have unique
gifts that no one else can deliver. The judgment you have
been running from will never come.
Alan Cohen
A Course in Miracles Made Easy |
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Don’t Condemn.
As you cannot get under other people’s skin, you
cannot possibly know what difficulties they have had to meet—how much
temptation, or misunderstanding, or stupidity within themselves they
have had to overcome. You are not perfect yourself and might
be much worse in their shoes. Judge not!
Emmet Fox
Find and Use Your Inner Power |
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