Obviously it’s all about judgement, but one might find it easier to think of it as judging, fast judging and hard judging. I would say the first one is an art, the second one is cheating and the third one is more like a sickness!
Indeed proper judgement is closer to an art as it requires a lot of care and a lot of wisdom. First, in order to get a wider picture of reality, we need to bypass our own feelings and projections, and start to dig in for more information. Then we have to cypher through that information and try to discern what really makes sense. Only then, we can build-up enough clarity to assess the situation globally as well as specifically.
In the professional world, judges and magistrates have among the highest levels of study requirements. Within the judiciary system itself, we have different levels of courts. Each court level is set up with different degrees of wisdom and discernment expertise in order to allow them to judge the previous level of judgement. Thus, appeal courts check decisions from lower courts, then they refer the case to federal courts etc. etc. up to supreme courts. No wonder that those judges selected for the supreme courts ought to be the oldest and wisest ones. They are supposed to have the most experience and impartiality, as well as deep knowledge of the detours and tricks of both people and the law.
In our personal evolution, our judgement capacity seems to go through a similar refining process. From gullible conditioned kids, to more reasonable young adults and progressively to the different levels of wise caring and discerning citizens, we can make a proportionate difference in our society and in our world. For example, as teenagers, we mostly judge ourselves and the world through gullible conditioned images. While we evolve toward more discerning adults, our judging skills will hopefully grow until we can slowly deal with reality without being too harsh or too lenient toward ourselves and toward others.
If we fail to do that, we would remain childish or immature, leaning on fast judgements to relate to our world. This will create unnecessary distance between us and others, leading to spiritual and social dissonances. Those dissonances can be considered as one of the root factors of inner conflicts, as well as outer wars, hot or cold.
Within the legal system, to counteract such fast judgement tendency, the presumption of innocence has been introduced. It allows more space for the judges to broaden their views and information base and help avoiding them to jump too fast into stereotyped judgements.
Similarly, if we personally want to avoid being judgemental, it would be better to allow more ‘space of mind’ in order to broaden and refine our perception of the world and get closer to reality. Softening our stance will bring us back to our more open caring nature as well as free us from the righteous inner impulses of our projections.
Taking time and creating space in our mind makes us more free to judge without projection and thus enable us to decide more wisely. Evolving from fast judgement to fair judgement in our society and in our mind is indeed one of the first building blocks of a fair society and a happy and meaningful life!
That is why our inner management techniques start first by developing those qualities.
But that being said, the most important point lays ahead: Leverage!
Realizing that since judging is a serious job and requires work, unless your judgement is related to a specific situation where it can make a difference, getting involved in judging is a real waste of time and energy!
Although we might understand this point intellectually, somehow most of us get caught judging all the time – ourselves and others – for subjects where we have no leverage at all, and no action to be taken. In that way, we tend to get infested by useless mental activity that keeps narrowing our minds and our views. Busy for nothing we could say, and often treat this subject as not important.
But actually, that is the most important point of all because it does reduce our judgement capacity for other matters where we could indeed make an actual difference !
For example, we all get busy judging politicians’ decisions without having much clue of the real situation and having zero leverage on the decision. During that time we forgot to take care wisely of what’s happening at home and discern properly what’s going on in our heart and in our lives!
To avoid that,
You can try the following:
When you spot your own mental judge
picking up on subjects where you have no leverage at all:
SHOOT IT !
RECUPERATE THE ENERGY.
REDIRECT IT TOWARD WHERE YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
