Judging something is to form an opinion about something, to come to some sort of conclusion. I am thinking about this today because someone that I haven't been speaking with brought it up. She said that I was judging her, and that I was being judgmental.
There was a time I quite proudly said I wasn't judgmental. I am pretty sure I believed it when I said it. Often people have shared things with me and I did not judge them for it. I did not tell them they shouldn't do it. I did not think less of them for it. There would be times I couldn't understand it. It wouldn't be for me. But for the most part I think people could feel safe telling me most anything.
As I think about this I wonder when judging something became a dirty word. When did it become a bad thing to judge something? We judge things all of the time. I think in some way we probably need to. I think when we form an opinion about something it helps us to know how we want to interact with it - or IF we want to interact with it.
As I am writing this I am reminded of a line from The West Wing. Jimmy Smits character at one point is for a bill until he's not. He is made out to be a flip-flopper for it. It turned out that he was for it when it was created, but then it became distorted, and something he could no longer support - so while it had the same name, it was no longer the same things, and he was against it.
While it is not quite the same thing, I think there are things in my life that I believed, until I no longer believed them. Things came into the equation that were not there originally and my mind - and opinion - was altered in the process. I think that happens to all of us at one time or another. It is like somehow we are supposed to be wedded to who we are always. I seriously doubt anyone appreciates it when it happens to them, and yet we've all done it to another.
One risk of judgment is being misinterpreted. If we form an opinion of something it could very well be that we are wrong in our assessment. I was wrong when I said I was non-judgmental. I had opinions of the things I heard, but I just didn't hold them against those I was talking to. A person could feel safe telling me something not because I would not judge what they would say but because my judgments would not affect how I interacted with them.
However, I acted a certain way and said certain things because I believed certain things. I certainly would have challenged anyone who thought I was incorrect. There is no doubt it served me to believe myself to be that way, and present myself to the world that way. Who knows what effect that had on anything in the process? Being "wrong" can certainly have effects on the things and the people in our lives.
"If loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right." Sometimes what is "wrong" just feels right. Sometimes even if we're wrong it works for us in some way.
I say these things as I contemplate a friendship. I contemplate the things I came to conclusions about. I contemplate what it costs me to believe those conclusions. I contemplate the case I am making to be OK with where I am about things.
So much of this experience of cancer has shaken up most anything that I believed about myself and my life. It has turned so much of my life on its ear. There are perspectives I could change. But at what cost? There are perspectives that have already had a cost.
One thing that occurs to me is that I have judged those I know. I have judged how they have been with me throughout this. I read something early on that said that the people in your life will surprise you. The ones you think will step up will step back and those you hardly know may be there for you in ways those closest to you are not.
Some of the most supportive, helpful people have been ones I either didn't know or barely knew a year and a half ago. Some of those I thought would step up, didn't. I can't help but come to some conclusion about that. You'd like to think that those closest to you would be there in a way that others would not, and when they're not, what do you do with it? What do you do with them? What do you do with yourself?
Dealing with cancer doesn't give me much patience to deal with things these days. It is much easier to walk away from something than to take precious, limited energy to try to fix it - especially when I am not sure it was working in the first place.
I know you are likely forming your judgments of what I am saying right now. There would have been a time I would not have shown the sides of me I thought you might judge harshly. You are just as likely as me to judge, and to judge me in a way that I may not like, or think is accurate. It is just a part of the "game" that we play as human beings.
One thing I am discovering is that it doesn't so much seem to be about the fact that we judge as much as it is about what we do with our assessments. In the end, it would seem that is really what we care about and what matters the most. And even then, my guess is that in the process if there is a cost, it costs us more than the person we judge.
It is just a guess, though. As all I am really trying to do is figure things out, to make some semblance of balance and sense and peace. cancer has a way of really screwing with you. While you think you have years of tomorrows ahead of you things don't carry nearly the same weight as when you are acutely aware of your mortality and the fact that odds are good that the amount of time you have left no where is near the time that has already been spent.
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