I think one of the easiest things to do is to judge people. All you have to do is to look from wherever you are standing and conclude that this is this or that is that. But then, one thing I’ve realized is that 99% of the time we’re totally wrong.
I don’t remember how I developed the habit of not judging people on situations based on my point of view only, but I remember a particular question my mom asked me when we were kids. We saw something on TV, and my brothers and I ended up arguing about it. It was about colors. I saw black but my brother saw blue-black.
So we argued for over 10 minutes in my mom’s presence and then she asked my brothers if they really saw blue-black, to which they responded in the positive. She also asked me if I saw black and I said yes.
She went back to that particular TV station, and that was when we realized we were both wrong. The color was violet. And the reason why we saw the colors we saw was where we were sitting. We were so far from the screen and didn’t really get to see the real thing, but we confidently concluded that we were right.
Years later, and my mom did the same today. She heard her neighbor’s kid crying and concluded that they were beating him. Coincidentally, the boy actually ran into our house naked, which really scared us. As expected, her elder sister also appeared at the gate some seconds after his grand unexpected entry.
My mom furiously asked the girl to back home. In fact, she told her she didn’t like how they beat the boy every evening, but the girl didn’t say anything. About a minute later, the boy’s mom entered our house complaining about how stubborn the boy was growing. One of the things that caught my attention was how the boy, at the age of 8 years, has started coming home late.
And he wouldn’t also say where he’s been going. Afterwards, his mom explained that the screams we heard each night weren’t because he was being beaten, but they were simply because he’d been asked to take his bath. At that moment, my mom was already becoming angry.
He then asked the boy what exactly was wrong with him. He stood there quietly smiling, and that was when my mom realized she was actually wrong for concluding.
As I said in the beginning, it’s very easy to judge from afar, but it’s never worth it. It’s hard and time consuming to get closer to situations and people before coming to a conclusion, but trust me, it’s always worth it.
Images are mine