Judgments And Opinions... Which Is It?
The other day, I talked about how we all had it in us to be judgmental without even knowing it and also how we could work on ourselves to do and be better. But then, not long after that post was made, I realized something else.
Our perception of judgments is also as different as our experiences and lifestyle. Many of us can easily confuse basic things like opinions to be judgments and we’d react accordingly. Just because you shouldn’t be judgmental about someone or something, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have an opinion about them. But then, how do we know when our opinions cross borders and become judgmental? How do we keep our opinions in check?
I think one of the reasons we were given free will is so that we can keep each other in check. It’s very possible for you to have an opinion of something or someone without judging them. Matter of fact, it’s impossible for us not to have an opinion because this is what dictates how we relate with others and it also charts the course of our lives.
You could be friends with a criminal, you choose not to talk about his crimes and partake in them because you know that life is not for you. Yet, you keep him as a friend. Your opinion of him is that he’s doing something that’s wrong, in the eyes of the law and the society, and you can decide if you’ll keep being his friend or not. But then, the judgment comes when you begin to tell him he’s a bad person for being a criminal, he probably deserves to rot in jail his parents failed to raise him properly.
This is just an instance. And many times, we see this clash in even simpler scenarios. You could simply have a suggestion about how a certain mother should treat her children, and she’ll suddenly see it as an attack on her motherhood skills and probably tag you as jealous. In the same way, you just might not like something a friend of yours does and they’ll see it as you being a bad-belle, which in simpler terms, means you want nothing but bad luck for them.
These are cases where opinions can easily be mistaken as judgments. But then, there are times when we go too far in sharing our opinions. Like in the case of the mother above, she probably made a mistake, which prompted your opinion. But you don’t just give the opinion, you go on to call her a bad mother and tell her that if she keeps it up, her kids will most likely turn up as a menace to society. And for the other example, you could go on to talk your friend down and tell them that they’re just bad and should give it up. They’ll never make it!
Can you see the difference now? Can you see how easy it is to mistake one for the other? People on both sides of this divide can easily make the mistake. So then, how can we tell when people are just giving us their opinions or being judgey? And how can we ourselves refrain from being judgmental so we can give our opinions as we must? How do we know how to strike the balance?
The truth is, this particular knowledge is not ingrained in us. We have to learn it ourselves and for many of us, life teaches us the hard way. That’s why so many people still can’t tell the difference between judgments and opinions.
What will help more though is the practice of listening more than talking. There are people who as long as what you say doesn’t match with what they want to hear, then you can be speaking gibberish for all they know. When you criticize them, they take it as a personal attack or that you hate them. And then, there are people that just in the name of criticism, dump all their frustration and anger on you, trying to put you down all in the name of correcting you.
It’s things like these that make people keep more to themselves. They refuse to speak up when they’re going through tough times and they refuse to caution their friends when they see them walking into a death trap. This is because they know that their opinion would not be welcomed and they could be branded as an enemy.
That’s why when the kasala bursts, you’ll start hearing things like, “I knew it was going to happen!” But you might ask why didn’t they speak up, if they did speak up, would they have been listened to without prejudice?
I’m not saying that you should keep your opinions to yourself, that’ll be bad especially when you know it could help someone else. I’m saying that we all should learn how to speak and listen. We should know how to structure our opinions and we should also know when people share their opinions with us.
We might learn a thing or two about ourselves when we allow people to tell us what they think. But then, is this something that can easily happen? Humans are just too hard-headed to actually calm down, everyone is in a rush these days. In a rush to listen, speak, and react. Next thing you know, bridges have been burned!
We have to do better!
I think no mother wants to make their child a criminal. Because of a situation and wrong decision a kid turns into a criminal with time. But no one has the right to say their parents were unable to make them good people.
Sharing opinions is good but most of the time rather than sharing opinions we start to judge and it's the thing which is not right. I think many people still don't know the difference between judgment and sharing opinions.
Yeah... it's so easy to begin to judge thinking we're sharing our opinion. And all this does is to break relationships and people wary of each other. We really need to do better!
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Lol
It is funny when people say that they know something will happen but they did not tell the person before so what is the benefit of their knowledge?
So funny
Yeah... many times people just say it to give themselves some importance. They're just as clueless as everyone else. And then, there were probably those who genuinely knew but were hesitant to say anything for fear of how their opinions would be interpreted.
The truth is that many people including myself sometimes wants to rush in talking and not listening but ever since I read the book "how to win friends and influence people ", I have been cautioning myself not to criticize or speak ill of anyone doing the wrong thing. The question sometimes would be, "what if it was me, what would I have done?"
Our opinions and being judgemental may mean the same thing but what makes it different is the tone and how we table the issue down. Sometimes, we need to be careful how we express ourselves when giving our opinions to others so it doesn't look as if we are judging them. This is where positive criticism comes into play. There is nothing wrong in giving our reasons for something bad and making people see why it isn't good to do such and making it seems as if you are painting the person bad. Correcting in love would do more good than the opposite.
Very smart!
Many times, how we table criticisms can be very damaging. Some people criticize in a way that insults the person and makes them look foolish while making themselves seem intelligent.
There are ways to do these things that will end with everyone being happy afterward.
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