On Judging Others

Has someone judged you at first meeting — or without meeting at all? Perhaps they never even met you, just heard something about you and formed an opinion, then judged you based entirely on their assumptions!

Does it upset you when someone does this? Feel irritated? Embarrassed?

"When I first saw you, I thought you were so arrogant!"
"Looking at you, I thought you were such a serious, heavy type — I never would have guessed you were this fun if I hadn't gotten to know you!"
"Everyone says you're very snobbish, but now I see you're completely down-to-earth!"

You've heard these words about yourself, haven't you?
We've all heard them to some degree. It's human nature: judging others — whether understood, half-understood, or completely misunderstood — there are many people who simply love to judge.

We all judge — consciously or unconsciously. Whether you're judging someone else or someone is judging you, in both cases the judgment is based on opinions, assumptions, feelings, and sometimes evidence. We make hundreds of such judgments every day.

Not all judgment is bad. When we form positive opinions about someone, it causes them no harm.

Judgment becomes a real problem when we give unnecessary, harmful, and false judgments about someone based purely on assumptions, biased opinions, and emotions — without any clear evidence — and then spread them.
Has this happened to you?

Most of the time, we see people misunderstanding us and spreading all sorts of talk. It's fine if someone doesn't understand us, but when they misunderstand us, it creates a terrible situation. Then we feel deeply hurt, restless, utterly helpless. And some people sit there thinking all wrong about us without knowing anything. When we're judged so badly, some become so emotionally driven that they end up doing things that harm themselves and the people around them.

I treated someone very well, and they decided I was easy to take advantage of.

I sincerely tried to help someone, and they thought I was cheap.

I tried to explain something I didn't like to someone, and they concluded I was very intolerant.

Perhaps someone asked me for something I couldn't possibly give, and when I tried to tell them this, they decided I was full of pride.

Even worse, someone has never met me, never spoken to me, yet a whole heap of judgments about me are buzzing in their head. They believe that everything they think about me is absolutely correct.
Oh, what people are capable of!

Some people know very little about you. And with just that little bit, they speak about your entirety. Do you know what happens? What little they know about you creates a kind of discomfort in them. Perhaps even that small portion of your existence shakes their entire being. They have to tolerate you somehow, though they could easily ignore you if they wanted to!

They don't know themselves why this happens. So they judge you. Perhaps judging reduces the suffering of weak-natured people.

This is how truth gets distorted. Truth must be seen through truth's lens, not through one's own lens. Relative truth always leads us to the wrong place. Those who cannot or will not see the face of universal truth — they are the ones who judge others. The friends of judgmental people are also judgmental. So they face no real difficulty living judgmentally.

Those who misunderstand you are annoyed or troubled by something about you. That "something" perhaps doesn't align with their taste or opinion, and for this reason they will spread random and assumption-based talk about you. That's where they find their joy. When you see such a person, flee from them quickly.

People want to misunderstand you out of jealousy. Jealous people often don't recognize this aspect of their own character. They then want to keep this jealousy alive with various self-invented arguments. This type of jealousy is a very natural characteristic of weak-minded people. They cannot tolerate anyone's good fortune. If you fall into such a person's trap, you'll see that without any logical reason, based purely on whimsical assumptions, they judge you, misunderstand you, and try to establish their position. No matter how much love you show them, they will return again and again to that same stance. There's no benefit in being good to them — they simply cannot move away from such jealousy. Meanwhile, you couldn't become like them even if you wanted to, because you don't have that nature of going after people. Therefore, in such cases, the wise thing is to quietly move away from such toxic people and maintain a safe distance.

It's natural to have your own opinion, your likes and dislikes. But a conscientious person will never speak about someone without knowing them well. You'll see some people who keep talking about their own principles and morality through various tactics and constantly show themselves off. These are dangerous creatures. Be careful of them. They are one thing outside, another inside. None of us can see anyone's inner face. They go around peddling their honesty unnecessarily, because fools cannot catch this simple trick. Be wary of anyone who presents their credentials in inappropriate places and unnecessarily researches others' credentials.

Each person's life is different. So each person is different. If you cannot resist the temptation to judge others from your own position without knowing their circumstances and way of life, you can never become a good person.

When someone misunderstands you, it's better to quietly ignore them. In such situations, you'll naturally want to present your true position and the real truth — this is normal. But there's really no benefit in doing so. Time will be wasted unnecessarily, effort will be squandered, spirits will be dampened. Better to change paths instead. There are many good paths — you just need to find them in time.

Let people talk if they want to talk. Let them. Just because they say something doesn't make it true. What they say reveals who they are, not who you are. If they don't have anything worthwhile to do with their hands, what else will they do but go after you? Poor things!