Judgy Bitch: Episode 1
Beyond conspiracy theories and the like, one of the things about human nature that I’ve found interesting lately is how quick we are to judge one another for the smallest of oddities. We all do this, so I’m not here to make you feel guilty. However, I think there is great power in acknowledgment, which is why I want to bring attention to my own judgement and why I think they occur. I am a judgy bitch (unfortunately), so this series will likely have several entries each week.
These entries will be short and will often raise more questions than answers. In fact, I doubt I will have any answers for you, but I hope to help you see some of your own judgement and begin to acknowledge them with the intention of someday being able to reduce the number of times per day you judge others.
The Case of the Missing Car Hood
I was on my way home after dropping my kids off at their respective destinations this morning when I noticed a car turning in front of me that had no hood on the front. The engine was completely exposed.
The gold-ish (though the layer of dirt made it difficult to tell for sure) minivan sped past me and I caught a glimpse of the shaggy-haired driver, who was probably no more than 20 years old.
In the 15 seconds it took for all of this to transpire I created an entire life for this person whom I knew nothing more about than he had shaggy hair and drove a minivan without a hood.
I imagined that he must be some kind of punk kid who either doesn’t go to school or always shows up late. I figured the car hood was missing because he came from a poor family and that’s all he could afford, or maybe he was a reckless driver who got into an accident and lost the hood that way. He is probably a very disrespectful young man who cares little about anyone else in his life. He also probably does drugs.
It only took seconds for me to formulate an entire narrative around his life, his habits, and his character. Even if any of it is true, it doesn’t matter. I still would know nothing about his situation, so my judgement would always be unfounded.
When we make these types of judgements about people, we essentially close our mind to thinking about them in any other way. I think that sometimes we are able to break free from our initial assumptions, but more often than not we don’t allow people to change from the person we first thought they were.
I don’t have to spell out the potential hazards of this, we all know what could happen; we lose out on a potential friend, we offend someone that we may need help from in the future, etc.
Judgements Aren’t All Bad
While snap-judgements can do a lot of harm in our personal relationships, I don’t think they are always a bad thing. We judge people as an innate response to our surroundings. Our intuition often tells us when something isn’t right about a situation or a person, and sometimes we listen to it and sometimes we don’t. And this can help protect us from dangerous situations.
But when used improperly, such as on passers-by who I will have little or no interaction with whatsoever, it only creates a negative mindset where we constantly try to pick out what is wrong with someone, rather than focusing on what’s great about them or the reasons why they are the way they are.
When we seek to understand instead of judge, we open our minds to a new world of possibility. We feel more empathy and compassion toward others and we appreciate their quirks for what they are: unique personality traits that make them the person they are.
Author’s Note: My daughter is obsessed with the Pitch Perfect series, which is full of hilarious one-liners. One of my favorites is in Pitch Perfect 2 when Fat Amy holds up a piece of hate mail from Chief Justice Sonia Sotomayor and says ‘Judgy Bitch’. And so was born the title of this mini-series.
