Is it good to judge others?
How to judge people’s character without becoming a condemning human. Judging people’s character is self-protection.
It’s a natural instinct to ” judge people’s character”. Everyone judges people. It’s the way we form opinions of other people and a factor that builds our relationships with them.
When it comes to “judging” people, it is often met with hypocrisy. Maybe because we define judging people in a hardcore way.
We tend to single people out and treat them negatively because of their “differences”.
Everyone claims to be “accepting” of others. Thus, we deny that we indeed are guilty of judging people. Obviously for fear of dealing with the accusation of doing something so “inhumane” or being cancelled especially in today’s world.
what is judging others?
Judgement is the assessment of character which is the foundation of relationships.
Merriam-Webster defines judgment as the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing.
You owe it to yourself to “judge” people’s character before letting them into your life. And this judgment is an assessment” of character. It’s a protective instinct.
In the same way, you can not bring a stranger into your home. Imagine coming home to see an unidentified person at your doorstep, and just letting them into your home to stay. That’s realistically not sensible.
The world is filled with all sorts of people. Even people in our close communities could have various characteristics that don’t sit well with us. In my opinion, the process of you identifying what characteristic of another person doesn’t sit well with you is judgment.
You need information on people before choosing to associate with them.
The information you have on them interacts with the information you have on yourself. E.g your perspectives and orientations, culture, etc.
This interaction of information influences your character and mindset towards the person, as well as your courses of action with the person.
is judging someone a bad thing?
People tend to shy away from intentionally judging other people’s characters. This way, they don’t come off as unaccepting and judgemental.
To Judge people’s character, behaviour, and lifestyles is not wrong. In fact, you need to know this to build better relationships with people whose orientation differs from you.
What makes it wrong to judge people is the action you take with the judgement you make of other people.
As we have stated, judging people’s characters is a way to protect yourself. However, most people take the judgement the extra mile. They allow judgement to affect the way they treat other people.
Treating people without simple humanity because of your judgement of their character is what makes judgement bad.
Imagine this case scenario. A girl just joins your class. Apparently, she just transferred from another school. Quiet and keeps to herself but looks absolutely rude and snobby.
She seldom engages in conversations, sits alone in class, and hardly participates in any extracurricular activities. Everyone tags her as a weirdo, snobbish, rude, arrogant, etc. One day, she gets confronted by the mean kids. This leads to her being humiliated in front of the entire class.
Everyone laughs at her. No one sticks up for her, she is rude, arrogant and snobby anyways. It turns out she has severe social anxiety. Also, there were more dramatic circumstances surrounding her admission into the school since she joined in her final year.
This is an example of letting our judgement of other people cloud our humanity. Most people justified the bad treatment she received because she never spoke to anyone. This might be a horrible example but I hope you see the message: don’t let your judgement of other people’s character affect your humanity towards them.
How Judge People’s Character
Sometimes you might take a liking to someone and want to invest your time towards building a relationship with them.
As we mentioned, it’s for your own personal benefit that you asses people’s behaviours and characteristics over a period of time and through multiple situations.
Here are a few things to note on how to judge people’s character;
Remember, Humans can’t be perfect:
When you’re judging a person’s character, always remember that just like you, they are human and that makes them susceptible to human flaws.
We will make mistakes and have past stories and experiences. These have affected us into everything we are today. The point of judging people is never to treat someone else badly because they have a “flaw” or “bad” trait.
Remember to factor in human nature. And selfishness, among other “bad characters” is human nature. Some people actually may not know how to control their “bad traits”.
All humans, after all, are made of dark and light. Some people’s darkness shines more than light and others just try very hard through personal development to obtain a Grey balance.
Because someone is a bad egg to you doesn’t mean he is a bad egg to everyone else. A toxic friend to you might be a great sister to someone else. Remember, you are human too.
Do not let your judgement drive you to treat people in unacceptable ways:
While judging people’s character, always have in mind that your primary goal in life should be to mind your business.
The knowledge you have of other people shouldn’t interfere with your humanity towards them. Protect yourself when you see someone displaying traits that don’t align with yours but never make it your point of duty to intentionally hurt them for that reason.
You need to understand that you have to accept so many aspects of life such as personality, political, religious, social, skin colour, hair texture, body, financial differences, etc.
It’s very self-absorbed to be disrespectful to someone because they’re from a different religion, culture or financial level than you. This is a very narcissistic way of living and judging someone.
Observe their ability to control their emotions:
When assessing people, you should pay keen attention to how their emotions come to play during different scenarios.
A person isn’t made up of one emotion, various situations elicit respective emotions. Most people just respond to things a little differently, and some emotions can be more overwhelming than others, and some people have better handles on their emotions than others.
Mental health is a real thing, and some people actually struggle with handling or managing their emotions.
However, the choice is up to you to decide if you want to build a relationship with this person or not, given the information you have on their emotional displays.
Just don’t spite or be hateful towards someone because they respond to emotions a different way from you. You have aspects in your life that you’re lacking too, which someone else could judge you with.
How do they treat other people?
It’s important to assess people based on how they treat other people. If your reason to judge people is to build relationships with them, it’s best to observe how they treat people given different circumstances.
Are they kind to people? Do they talk to people with respect?
Do they care about social status? How do they treat people who are in lower positions than them?
Do they have common human decency? Etc. Except you’re a witch and you love witchy people, then you can align yourself with the people who fit your lifestyle.
To each their own. How people treat others is a very effective mirror of mindset.
Do they take responsibility or transfer blame?
Are they quick to distance themselves from problems they might have contributed to creating?
You might not want to open yourself to a person who doesn’t ever accept responsibility for anything, not even for their selves. This is another way to assess people’s character and identify their responsibility stance.
Are they team players, are they the Beyoncé of the group, are they laid back in the group, this information is necessary to help you make a better judgement of people.
What do their morals represent:
It is also a better way to judge people by their morals. Bad company does exist, and actual unhinged individuals exist.
Some people walk around with so much darkness in their lives that they want to make others like them. You would be doing yourself a great favour by judging and examining people’s morals. Through their company, honesty and integrity, loyalties, and lifestyles.
Some people’s lifestyles may actually never be compatible with yours, this goes for family, friendships and relationships. Steer clear of people who will compromise your dignity and sabotage your happiness and success.
CONCLUSION;
I used to pride myself as a person who was not judgemental of other people but I’ve learnt the hard way that was ignorance on so many levels, absolute naivety.
It is self-love to sieve carefully through the company you keep and the people you allow into your life.
Never ignore that gut feeling that keeps telling you something is off about a person. Protect yourself, spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.
If someone has proven to be dishonest to you, over several occasions, or is shady to you as a habit. Take note and save yourself the stress. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.
Walk away from people who do not belong with you. No offence to everyone but some people just don’t belong together. You can’t be too accepting of everyone. Lastly, you’re bound to lose yourself when you expose yourself to all.
Lastly, people make mistakes, and it’s best to differentiate this from repetitive actions done purposely to hurt you, (intentionally or not).
Mistakes can happen once, when it happens a third time, it’s not a mistake but character. You decide what’s best for you.
Judging people’s characters, especially before establishing relationships with them will save you from meeting some really kind of disturbed and disturbing humans. Take things slowly, and never rush into relationships with anyone, PLEASE!
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