Ixnay on the Judgementay
By Doug Nielsen
Do you do this more than you would like to admit?
I wish you could have been there. He stood at my door with a look on his face that was part confusion, disgust and fear. Why? I had no idea.
I had called him to do some plumbing work. He was the stereotypical plumber--big, burly, raspy voice and yes the inevitable “crack” was showing.
If you had seen me welcome him in, you would have laughed out loud. His hesitation was visible -- as if he had seen a ghost lurking somewhere around my feet. Hesitantly, he came in, said little, and went straight to his work.
Have you had one of those moments where embarrassment screamed through your body like a lightning bolt? Well, that’s the only way I can describe what happened next. In horror, I looked down at my feet and remembered that my daughter had painted my toe nails a two- tone bright purple and florescent lime green. Things started to make sense now. No wonder he had been hesitant to come in. No wonder he had looked at me so quisically.
So what now? Should I pretend that nothing was wrong and take the road of self-confidence -- reassuring myself that if he wanted to judge me that was his business? Or should I quickly find way to explain the toe nails away?
As much as I would love to tell you that I took the helm and was secure with my neon toe nails -- I didn’t! I “explained” it away. I said, “Betch you wish your toe nails were as sexy as mine?” He literally dropped his wrench, smacked his head on the cabinet and emphatically said “No, that’s not how I roll.” I tried to explain that my daughter had had a party last night and had painted them. He didn’t appear to buy my truthful story. He quickly finished his job and left.
How quickly do you judge, criticize and put yourself above others?
Honestly, this is something I fight with all the time. Sometimes, I am downright disappointed in myself for my unfounded, unhealthy and unjustified judgments. Yuck! This type of judgment does not reflect the person my heart yearns to be.
“Your perceptions of others reveal so much about your own personality," says Dustin Wood -- assistant professor of psychology at Wake Forest. His research team has studied judgment and has found that how positively you see other people not only shows how satisfied you are with your own life, but also how much you are liked by others . In addition he notes, "The simple tendency to see people negatively indicates a greater likelihood of depression and various personality disorders."
I guess we don’t need research to tell us what our hearts already know, this type of judgment is simply not healthy. So what do you want to do about it?