Think about it, when you meet someone for the first time, what goes through your head? If I am being totally honest, it's usually what they are wearing and there accent/language that gets me first. I can't say that I am proud of it, but if i meet someone wearing jogging bottoms, a hoody, Rockport boots and speaking in a Jamaican accent when they are clearly white! Well, let's just say I keep my wits about me. Likewise, when I meet someone who is wearing a Saville row suit, Italian shoes and speaks like an Etonian. Well, let's just say I keep my wits about me. All these things I notice in the first 7 seconds, without thought or consciousness I immediately judge and that judgement is responsible for my attitude towards that person. Obviously, after spending time with someone your perceptions of who they are change. I have been with my wife for 6 years and I am still finding out new things that alter my perception (all good things by the way!). Even if we cannot see the person we are talking to, we still make a snap judgement. When we talk to someone on the phone for the first time we make judgements on their voice, the background noise, weather they sound friendly, we even start to build a picture in our head of what they might look like.
And it carries on..... we get up and we make judgements on people based on our own values, beliefs and experience, especially as a parent. I am constantly judging my 16 year old daughter, telling her what she should and shouldn't do and why. Thinking people will presume she is easy if she goes out in a short skirt, skimpy top and lots of make up and making her get changed. Who am I to say what she should and shouldn't do? Yes, it is my job to nurture her, but judging and dictating is wrong. By behaving this way I stop her own personal growth and raise her to live my life, with my beliefs, not to develop her own based on her own experience. Our judgements are based on our perceptions of another persons reality. The reality for my daughter is that what she wears is in fashion and she has only been wearing makeup for a couple of years and is still experimenting. The guy I met earlier in the hoody and jogging pants, could be a high performing A level student who last year earned £45000 from his own You tube channel. How would I know?!
Take a look at this image and think about how you judge this person?
What are your thoughts on who this person is and what values they have?
I saw this picture for the first time whilst putting together a presentation about not judging by appearance for a class of 9 year old's. When I asked them what they thought, their answers included angry, violent, scary, fighting, poor and black.
I then showed them another picture of this person, and asked them their thoughts.
Why am I saying all this????
Well, how many times each day do you judge people? How many times do you judge people because of their gender? come on.....be honest with yourself and truly think about it. Its only when you sit and reflect on your behaviour that you start to identify how many times you do it.
The world is a mixed up place, war, famine, religion all play a part in shaping our views of the people we meet. Stopping ourselves from judging people is one of the hardest things to do, we have been programmed by society since the day that we were born to think a certain way, usually according to our gender. As a child the world is a place of wonder, a world without constraint, if you want to be superman you just simple believe it to be true. A child does not understand equal pay for equal work as they have no understanding of treating people differently. It is the parents and the world around them that teaches these beliefs.
Osho Zen said "If you drop knowledge and within knowledge everything is included, your name, your identity, everything, because this has been given to you by others. If you drop all that has been given to you by others, you will have a totally different quality to your being...Innocence,"
Forget everything you have been taught by others/society and see things through your child eyes. If I had never seen anyone or heard any stories of women being abused, then I would not know that existed and would treat them solely as another human being. If I was not told that men are the stronger sex, then every individual would be judged on their own capability. If I was not told that people wearing hoodies and jogging bottoms were poor or lazy, then I would just see someone who chooses to wear those clothes. How great would that world be?
So......my advice is this, stop watching the news, stop reading gossip magazines and stop letting peoples opinion's get in the way of you making your own choices about what you believe. Raise your children to think for themselves and do not let your childhood or your experience colour their judgement. Instead, encourage them to be authentic, ask them how they view the world and do not correct them, listen and learn how to be innocent again.
If we can all do this then maybe, just maybe, we can make the world a better place to live.
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