Pointing a finger: Being a judgemental person.
Last year, I was going towards Ikeja-along and a beggar was lying in a puddle of water and I was dismayed as to why he was doing this on a sunny day mind you, he is crippled. I being so self-absorbed thought he was trying to make people feel more remorseful to his situation and give him more money. I felt ashamed for my poor sense of judgement and decided to put my barefoot on the ground only to find out it was really hot on that particular day and his rubber pads would not suffice. After that day I ensured that I would be more empathetic and mindful of the facts before judging any person or situation.
As humans, it is our nature to judge people without really considering the facts. According to the Merriam Dictionary, the definition of “judge” means to form an opinion about something or someone after careful thought. I don’t think many of us consider the facts before judging people. When we first see someone, we start to create a mental picture of what this person is about based on the physical appearance of the person without really knowing the person. It is most evident in our conversations online about people who allegedly committed a crime but after hearing one side of the story, we become judges and start giving our verdicts without hearing the other side of the story or confirming the facts and when the other side of the story comes out we get called out for our poor judgement. As children, we are taught not to judge people but we just can’t help it because as humans we judge one another, only if we could be more empathetic.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another that is by putting oneself in the other person’s position. Practising empathy will enable us to understand a situation from the other person perspective and ensuring we make a better judgment about a person or situation while considering the facts also. This will lead to us having healthy and more informed opinions about people and situations. Would like to hear about the time you made a bad judgment and how you learnt from that experience, thanks for reading.
