jeansinjeans

Poorly paraphrased from my childhood:

“if someone is judgemental, it shows more about them”

Now while I don’t fully think this is the quote, nor did I understand it at all growing up, I think there is some truth to it & starts an interesting conversation. I never really understood the idea of people being mean or judgemental towards others & how that reflected what they cared about, until was well into college.

Judgement frequently has a negative connotation but everything is a judgement. Should you drive or walk to work today, how much studying will you do for this test, does your friend need help carrying that, why is your friend wearing a denim-on-denim outfit? Judgements help us make informed decisions & help us proceed through the world.

In high school, I truly liked all of the people in my school. There was some people that I was closer with & enjoyed spending more time with, but there was no one I really disliked or tried to avoided. Until I came to college. It was honestly really weird for me mentally & emotionally to find people I disliked. I felt like I was being a bad person or I was passing judgement too quickly on these people & I shouldn’t be disliking them without really knowing them. This is not to say I was being rude or mean towards them, it was more my own shock of “why do I not like them” or “why do I not want to be around them?” It took a lot for my to realize that it was not the fault of them or me, it was simply because we had different values & different ideas on how we wanted to present ourselves & how we wanted to treat others, as well as the way we wanted to be treated.

Growing up I was treated, at times, very poorly by my close friends. I didn’t have the self-confidence/love/respect to understand that the way I was being treated was not okay & was only able to recognize that in retrospect. As I became a more fully formed human through college, I have slowly started to find more morals & values, things I care about, & strengthened my beliefs in how I want to treat people & the way I want to be treated.

Going back to the quote at the top, I didn’t understand that quote, & versions of it were said very frequently throughout my childhood. “Kids are only being mean because they are jealous” or “they are judging you but it’s only reflecting things about them.” I always thought “how stupid is that, why would they not be kind about things they care about” but last semester it finally clicked.

I finally figured out why I am drawn to certain people, why I chose to spend time with specific friends, & why there are some that I just don’t love.

We (hopefully) choose to surround ourselves with people who align with how we want to be, how we want to be treated, & how we want to present to the world. Whether we are choosing based on values, wealth, jobs, morals, religious ideals, or hobbies, we have made judgements about who we want in our close circles.

“If someone is judgemental, it shows more about them”

People show what they value by how they judge others. For example, if I really care about how my hair looks every day, I spend an hour every morning getting it perfect & I leave my house ready for the day with my perfect hair, what will I care about/ look at for the day? Others hair. I will compare their hair to mine, what color are other peoples, their braids are coming undone, that person had a really bad haircut, etc. If I see someone passing by with messy hair, I will mentally (hopefully not verbally) comment on that person. “They don’t take care of their hair, they must not care how they look.” I am going to pass judgement about that persons hair. But say that person doesn’t care about how they physically look, they roll out of bed and leave their house. That person is so unbothered by the way their hair looks because it is something they do not value as highly as other things, there for they do not give it much mind & it does not bother them throughout the day. This can be applied to a multitude of situations, not just appearances. People judge others based on what they care about. I have realized I really care about kindness & positivity. There are some people that I have judge & I see as not valuing those same things. There is nothing wrong with them, they have different values. I am not a bad person for not wanting to be a close friend of theirs, just like they are not a bad person for not having values that align with mine.

All of this said, it can be helpful to see next time you make a judgement, to think about what that shows about you & what you value. If you find you frequently judge others social media posts, how often are you judging your own? Do you only post when you feel like you have something important or valuable to post? It is important to know that, though while judgement can turn malicious or can sometimes be hurtful, it is not inherently bad, nor does it make you a bad person. I believe we can all be more accepting & less judgemental, but judgement is an important tool we have to help guide us through life, finding our passions, our people, & things that matter to us.

Part Two (I want to say more)

Judgement can also just reflect our insecurities or protect us from expected rejection. Going along with the above ideas, judgement shows us what we care about, usually meaning what we are insecure about. If we are judging others, we are most likely comparing ourselves to them, & therefore judging ourselves. We can also prejudge situations or other people’s response in anticipation that we will be rejected, in attempts to prepare ourselves for the hurt or disappointment that comes with that. I frequently prejudge how I think others will react in order to either change what I am about to do to avoid the reaction I anticipate or prepare myself for what I expect to be unchanging rejection. A common example I face a lot: raising my hand in class. If you can’t solely tell by this blog, I love to talk. I could chit chat & share my thoughts all day, but when it comes to talking in class, I get so anxious. Most of the time it is because I feel inferior in my class, I assume everyone knows the answer to the question I am going to ask, therefore they will think I am stupid, therefore I should just not ask because me not knowing is better than everyone thinking I am stupid, right? Or if I do decide to raise my hand, I have gone through the debate in my head that it is worth asking the question or answering a question the professor has asked, & I am now willing to accept the quiet judgement I just assume everyone has once I open my mouth. But on the flip side of that, when my classmate raises their hand, I am always thinking it was a good question, or I knew the answer but only because I had spent so much time on the reading, or they are really smart for even thinking of that question. My judgement is only towards myself & about myself, protecting me from this assumed judgement & rejection, that truly is most likely not there (& if it is, I don’t hear about it).

Judgement is really important but it can also be really limiting. Whether you are self-rejecting (assuming others judgements of you & deciding to not do something because of that assumption) or you are spending too much time & energy thinking or judging others, it can be vital to your happiness & success to have a bit more grace for yourself & others & try to release a bit of that judgement.