The other day as I was going through my Facebook newsfeed, I came across a picture that one of my friends had shared. It was more like a comic strip. A man with long hair and who had a few piercings on his face was walking with a child who was supposedly his daughter. He holds her hand and asks her how her day was in school. Two women pass by them. Looking at the man one of the women tells the other that with a father like that the child will never succeed. To which the other replies that she will surely end up in some place bad and will end up doing drugs. How rude you may say, but that is what most of us are. And the story is not over yet! After the man and the girl pass by, one of the women’s daughter comes to her and asks her to play with her. What do you think might be the reaction of the mother? She yells at her daughter and asks her not to disturb her while she is talking something important.
The lady didn’t have time for her child. That maybe okay given that fact that everybody is leading busy lives these days. But then she wasn’t doing anything productive. But her main mistake is not that. She didn’t have time for her daughter and she also couldn’t appreciate someone who made time for his daughter. Instead she ended up passing rude comments and judging him unfairly. Isn’t this true in our lives?
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” we say but we feel it is okay to judge people by the way they look. We pass comments on every little flaw that we find in others- sometimes silently and sometimes a little too loudly. When something valuable is missing in the house, who is blamed first? No prizes for guessing- the maid or the servant boy or any of the other helpers that we have. And what evidence do we have? The same old one! They are poor so they steal. The same holds true in other commercial establishments and often the innocent suffer for no fault of theirs.
According to our mentality a good looking person is always good and a not so pretty person is always bad. When we have a chance to blame someone we always choose to blame someone whom we assume is not good without really knowing about the person. Do we know their story? Do we know how they got where they are? Do we know why people are the way they are? No! We are really busy people you see. We don’t have time to know people and the truth behind them. Yet, we have all the time in the world to gossip and pass comments. We always have this habit of pointing fingers at others. No matter what the matter is the other person is always wrong. But what we fail to realize is that when we are pointing a finger at others the rest of the fingers point to us. Are we perfect? No! Are we always right? No! Then who are we to judge others? What authority do we have to judge others?
And what do we get by judging others? Nothing! Instead we waste our time and energy on unproductive things. We end up harming ourselves as well. When we keep judging others, we also feel that others will judge us. And sometimes though we are doing what is right we keep asking ourselves what will others think or say about it which often results in keeping our dreams from turning into reality. The next time you feel like judging someone then do it at your own risk. “Do unto others that you would like others to do unto you”. It holds good for good things as well as the bad ones. So when you judge others, be ready to be judged yourself.
