Late Night Thoughts: Judgement

I haven't been posting in the past six months, but honestly I have been writing for another thing and it was quite a lot, I shall say. This post, however, is going to be very different to the rest of this blog's posts.

Ever heard of the saying "don't judge a book by its cover"? Well, truth is people do. Maybe not all of them, but some do. Including me.

Why do people judge? There are more than just one answer to that question, I suppose. However, come to think of it, they all are tied up to one end; perspectives.

People have value and they have belief of their own. Each one of us, no matter how different, has something we believe in. We value that something. And that something becomes our glasses which we use on daily basis. We see everything through our own perspectives.

Right, wrong, good, bad, true, false. That kind of concept, we already have that in our minds whether it's an individual thought or a culturally shared thought. We classify and label everything with that concept we own. Problem is, we don't share the same concept. We may and we may not agree on something. Sometimes people just don't care. Other times, they do, and that leads them to judgement.

What one think is good might as well be bad to another, vice versa. 

Take an example of a mother who does not let her daughter to go outside after dusk. Her reason for this might be that she does not want her to be getting into trouble out there at night, for it is dark and crimes are most likely to occur at such time. Her daughter, on the other hand, may find that her mother is overprotective because she is the only one in her group of friends who has to leave early from social events.

Or take an example of a girl who always goes home late at night. Some may wonder why she wanders around at night. Some may see her as a bad girl or some kind, when in fact she works at a convenience store for a night shift.

As what I have written above, people make judgements out of simple things they take a glimpse at, without knowing or looking for further information. So how should one react when judged? Answer is, one should not.

I am a big believer that explanation does not guarantee that people would believe you. Trust is earned, not given. So why bother trying to even explain what you've done and what your reasons are when in the end, those who judge you will still second guess or doubt them?

Let me take an example of what is around me. Here, where I live, how people dress matters. I live in a culture that values modesty, but at the same time worries about modesty itself.

If you want to dress yourself with tank top and shorts then do so. Never mind what people say about it. It's your right anyway. You have your reasons. Either the weather is irresistibly hot, or you feel comfortable wearing that, or any other reason there might be.

If you want to be a good Muslim woman, you'd want to obey Him. So, dress as He told you to. Cover yourself, wear loose clothing, and wear your proper wide hijab. Never mind what people say about it. It's His order. It's what you must do. You are not a radical or a terrorist as what people may assume.

People's judgement does not define you, for they do not know you as well as you know yourselves. 

Do what you like to do as long as it does not harm anyone.

After all, we are all humans. We are made of the same cells, the same atoms. We are all just the same carbon and hydrogen and oxygen.

 

We all make mistakes. We all sin, just differently.

Thus, we needn't judge anyone. It is honestly not an easy thing to do; not judging people without actually knowing them personally. But it is only a matter of understanding. Before we judge anyone, try to know and understand them and their reasons, try to be open minded, try to put ourselves in their shoes. Perhaps we will never understand them at all, since we do not know how it is like to be them.

Deep inside, we all have reasons for every single thing we do. Even if we sometimes say that we don't have any. And nobody knows those reasons better than ourselves,

 

People judge, but their judgements are invalid.

They are not God, so what the hell?



P.S. I am not being sexist by giving all the examples about women; they are just what appear on my mind.