To Judge And Be Judged

When I told Ah Line that I was writing about this, her reaction was, "I am guilty!" Well, I think all of us have our fair share of judging people and being judged. Maybe even started when we were very young. When we were all children, we looked around and "surveyed" who we thought could be our "kaki" before we tried to make friends. When we were in school, our intelligence was determined by our school results. While we were looking for life-time partners, we applied our combination of "no logic" feel with practical rationals to ascertain if that potential man / woman was our ultimate. These are examples of judging and being judged.


While we may have been growing up in this kind of environment, we may not be at ease at all, when faced with a situation where you have to exercise your judgement. We may be even more uncomfortable when we know we are being scrutinised and judged. How so, you may ask? Well, if you are the judge, you have to ensure that your judgement is unbiased (not easy), made with the best understanding of the situation and probably with empathy. Many a times, we are swayed by our own feelings and emotions and hence our judgment may be tinted. However, having said that, I am not implying that one should always sit on the fence and not have any opinion of his own. I think when we pass judgement, we have to do so responsibly and reasonably.

On the other side of the coin, I don't think anyone likes to be judged. It gives a feeling of belittlement sometimes. I guess in order to minimise misjudgement by people around us, we have to increase their understanding of us. How do I expect my friends to know that I like to eat durian if I don't tell them or I don't eat with them? Sometimes, the more we share, we more comfortable we are with one another, the lower the guard for you know these are people who do not look at you with tinted glasses as you did not tint their sight in the first place.