Judgments of Others

It’s amazing how judgmental people can be.

I recently had a negative experience with someone in my field (writing) that blatantly characterized me to someone else. She just threw a judgment out there…on a whim that she might be right, yet she couldn’t have been further from the truth.

I won’t go into details about what was said, but I will say that I was shocked at the personal accusation—from someone who’s never met me, and had only a brief glimpse of a few lines of my work—a personal analysis of me (a wanna-be Dr. Phil!).

As if that weren’t enough, she also criticized the grief I shared in an article, along with the fact that people may need counseling during their grief from pet loss (How to Cope With the Loss of a Pet: http://www.healthylivingmagazine.ca/pet-loss). Criticizing people for needing help with their grief…?

Although this isn’t unusual…people often form judgments about others. And in the writing business, criticism of your work is essential, and you have to have a thick skin (which I do). What stands out is how far from the truth one can be in their super-quick assessments of another person.

Most of us have heard old adages, such as “don’t judge a book by its cover” or “don’t judge another person unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” As cliché-ish as they sound, they’re true.

It may be a tall order, but it would be nice to see more people give others the benefit of the doubt—to see more of the positive in others—even through the pitfalls, rather than disparage them.

We’re human, doing the best to our abilities, and a little more appreciation and less flack could go a long way in our society.