Hidden Hypocrisies and the Futility of Judgment
Many of us have something special and subtle that we really pride ourselves in. For myself, since I was a child I had a lot of pride in my honor/integrity, meaning the alignment of my actions and words. Despite being a poker player, I always hated to lie. I also had a lot of pride in my ability to be rational, meaning to not let capriciousness sway my actions from my best interest. While being inferior to other people in other ways, I felt superior to people that lacked these things. I especially judged people negatively who broke their word or did irrational things to ultimately hurt themselves, such as tilt and play badly, lie about what they would do in the future, or claim to value something and not live up to it. In particular I loathed hypocrisy, to me it was a symbol of injustice and ridiculousness.
One day it occurred to me that judging people negatively was itself bad for me. People don’t like that, surprise (unless they judge together)! Not only that, but negative judgment was, for the most part, not very useful in changing behavior I didn’t respect. It even seemed to make people want to change less! I realized that my judgment was not beneficial on the whole for anyone, ultimately concluding that it was irrational itself. I realized it was a version of hypocrisy, and that I, too, was a hypocrite — the same thing I condemned.
Then I thought about it some more and many new inner hypocrisies emerged. I complained and threw cards when I lost at poker, to no one’s benefit but for my own ego. Why? I succumbed to pain while doing cardio at the gym, or did exercise with poor form. Why? Was I too weak to perform according to my best interest? I lost my temper too easily when people didn’t act as I wanted. Why? I even occasionally made the same mistakes I criticized in poker. It seemed that the weight of judgement got heavier the better I became! “How could I make such a stupid mistake for 250k?” “How can I make the same mistakes over and over?” . “Play better you fucking idiot” I often thought to myself. At my worst in extreme frustration, I slammed the table violently and screamed, and was kicked out of a casino once. “Ridiculous, I know I should be grateful, why do I do this?” On reflection, It was not hard to see that people superseded me in many ways including according to the virtues I claimed to champion and also those that I looked down on.
I despised the weakness I saw in myself. From my self-judgement aligned with my desire for integrity, I decided I must change and to remove the weakness inside of myself. Frustrated with my past and my efforts, I then judged my character. Change is hard though, and can’t happen easily. “I am so ridiculous, what the fuck is wrong with me?” “With all this effort to no avail, how can I ever change?” “I’m so fucking stupid.” I could go further still attacking who I am, slowly sliding into despair. This would bring me back to a place where I was in my adolescent years, where I was truly lonely and had serious issues. “I have so many things wrong with me, I am a failure as a person.” “I cannot change.” “I will never be good enough.”
Finally, through an alternative perspective, I realized the truth. It seemed that no matter where I was in life or competency, the potential for judgement remained and often deepened the more I had. The problem was not the faults themsleves but the negative judgment and what resulted from it. All these kinds of thoughts were bullshit. Imperfections are inevitable, and if you look hard enough, you will ALWAYS find ways to judge yourself or others. Beyond its utility to deal with bad behavior appropriately, attachment to judgment seemed to be a never-ending cycle of pain, whether it involved others or not. It also seemed that self-doubts in the form of self-judgment were self-fulfilling, with bottomless pits of focus being drained. Why, then, should we judge ourselves or others? What meaning do our past actions have on who we decide to be today and in the future?
As a consequence of these thoughts I resolved in my heart to throw away my arrogant judgments, and to remember that my own self judgments were, when beyond reason, actually traps in disguise. I saw that they did not necessarily mean something beyond what focus I gave them and what they were. The solution seemed to be understanding through compassion for myself and for others. It’s needed especially for subtler problems, such as for hypocrasies and deeper doubts. Over time, knowing these things I have judged people less and less and replaced those thoughts with their counterparts. “I make mistakes, but I can do better tomorrow.” “People may make mistakes and have shortcomings, but they can do better and still have much to offer.” “My actions in the past do not define who I am, and I can choose to try my best to act better in the future.” “Look at what I have done, what else can I do?” “Look at what people have done, and what else they can do or be?” When I thought of things this way, I noticed that my character had in fact changed over time, but that my negativity blinded me from seeing it. Change also seemed to occur faster… and forever I will be improving.
I imagine many of you who are reading this have had similar thoughts in both directions. I wrote this so that if you do you might relate to my conclusions. I like to believe that everyone has the capacity to overlook their judgments in favor of what could be possible… Is it possible that all of society’s judgements are the same in this sense, always judging from an arbitrary and destructive point of view? What would the world become if we replaced our judgment with compassion?