Judgment-al Day

I have to admit something. I found myself being a might judgmental on the way home from work today. I ended up behind a car, and (herein lies the first sign of judgment) it was not a nice car. And it was filthy.

There were two people in the car, and while I couldn't tell for sure, it appeared to be a father and son who (judgment #2) seemed sort of ramshackle - jackets over hooded sweatshirts, messy, seemingly style-less hair. They didn't appear to be communicating to one another, even though I was behind them at a stop light for what seemed like an inordinately long amount of time.

The son (if that's what he was) was eating what appeared to be potato chips. It was dinner time, so I was assuming this might be dinner. Or perhaps an appetizer.

Anywho - the whole scene, for some reason, was so depressing to me. I used the above facts/assumptions to draw very judgmental impressions of these people and their lives and where they were going. And I had this overwhelmingly thankful feeling that that wasn't my family, I wasn't in that car and didn't need to converse with them. (Yeesh, did I really just admit that?)

It's a bit ironic, because I think this all loosely stemmed from being depressingly reminded all day of how many uneducated, hateful, blindly led, extremist people there still are in this world. Too much time on the Internet seeing atrocious comments posted to the Des Moines Register article that simply stated that Barack Obama was coming back to Iowa to campaign this week. If there were 40 comments, 34 of them included reference to "Obama bin Laden." Clips from Palin's latest rally included numerous hateful, harmful, threatening statements along with blatant declarations that "I'll never vote for a black man."

Political views aside, it was all just too much. I think we've come so far and then it slaps me in the face that we have not.

So the ironic part of all of this comes from the fact that it was these people's judgmental views that got me on the "thank god I'm not that way" train, which led to me having completely judgmental views of this poor pair in front of me who, for all I know, were catching a quick bite to eat on their way to knock on doors to get people to vote for Obama. I mean, that's the point, right... who are we to judge? How much of our perception of people/issues is related to assumptions we have no business making? Based on incomplete information, stereotypes, fear, irrationality, laziness?

Dwelling on judgment all day had led me to be judgmental. So unfair!

Here's what my witnessing of this election has reminded me:
I am not a fan of people who KNOW things are one way or another. There is RARELY a black and white in this world - just so many shades of grey. So if you've decided something is black or white and refuse to even entertain, listen to or "tolerate" other views, you're really one of my very least favorite kinds of people. The beauty of life is in trying to navigate all the different views, learn from them, share them, build your life on the ones that work best for you. Not to convince everyone around you that your view is the right one.

The people who think they have it all figured out shut me down cold. I'm not sure what to say to them. I mean, why bother saying anything at all? If they have it all figured out, they sure as hell don't need me. All I get from them is a profound sense of hopelessness.

Sometimes I worry that I don't have enough strong views on things. But I actually think it can be a good quality. We need people with strong opinions (and, preferably, open minds). But we also need people who can see both sides of a lot of issues and hopefully help bridge the gaps.

Everyone jokes about going to "diversity training" at work, but I went nearly 15 years ago and I still go back to some of the concepts we discussed. One is to try to find commonalities with people and to realize that while they may do things differently or believe different things, those things may be based on the very same core values as yours.

The very politically correct workplace example they used was that some people need/want to leave work at the same time each day in order to be home with their family. They may look at the people who always work late as neglectful of their families and therefore not as "good" a person as they are. But in reality, the second person may be so concerned about being able to provide for their family that they're committed to getting ahead so their family can have a better life. The core value for both of these people is the same: take care of your family. It just plays out in different ways.

I think about that lesson a lot. We all have so much more in common than it might at first appear. That's where we need to begin.

And so I do try not to judge.

But some days it's just so hard.

And now that I'm done spewing random Bess-ish uncertainties, feel free to judge me. Although, I'd encourage you to rise above the temptation. Feeling superior does not make one feel better, if you know what I mean.