Judging People Prevents us From Being Happy

• Maybe we feel better about ourselves if we see the less desirable traits in others.

• Maybe we judge others when they’re different for any reason – they look different, act different, have different beliefs and values.

• Maybe we judge situations because we’re afraid or we don’t understand them?

When we’re judging people we arbitrarily label them and lessen their value. When we’re Judging ourselves we feel bad and focus on our perceived negative worth instead of our positive worth.

The thing about judging others is that most often we’re wrong.

When we judge others it’s most often born out of our own sense of unhappiness than anything else. How could we possibly know what anyone else is truly going through or why they act as they do?

Have you ever felt sorry for a blind person? Why? Maybe that blind person can actually see life more clearly than someone with sight.

Have you ever judged someone unfairly just by how they looked? We all have.

One of the best examples of how judging a culture we’ve become was the reaction to Susan Boyle on You’ve Got Talent in the UK. If you are one of the few people who hasn’t seen this video , pop over to YouTube.com and watch the crowd’s reaction and pre-judgment of this woman.

Think of all the people and experiences you dismiss from your life because of pre-judgment.

We live in a time when judging others is widespread in the media. Just turn on the TV and it seems as if every channel has a show where someone is judged and then voted off, kicked off, or fired by a panel of so-called expert judges.

Even Oprah jumped in on the Reality TV popularity bandwagon. She had a show where Givers were rewarded for giving in a bigger way than the other giving contestants. Once again, every week someone was booted off the show for not being as giving as the other contestants. Why should anyone feel bad for giving? I love Oprah, but was disappointed that the wonderful idea of showcasing giving was part of the typical Reality TV format.

Think of all the wonderful experiences you keep yourself from by pre-judging. How many times have you been wonderfully surprised that something was better than you thought?

Don’t limit yourself.