Because I Am Not Judge Judy

I wish I was better at pressing pause, even for a few seconds, before I judged people, especially strangers. My mind is quick to draw conclusions, based only on the signs they have in front of their houses, the stickers they have on their cars, or the conversations I overhear while waiting in line at the grocery store.

What if I could write better stories in my mind? Think different thoughts?

I think it would make me more merciful, more gracious.

Because I  don’t know much about anything. I like to think I do. But I don’t.

I don’t really know why that man in the black diesel truck with the “Let’s Go Brandon” flag streaming behind it is driving so erratically down the freeway, why he pulled up close behind me, why he zoomed off after I could finally let him pass.

My immediate thought? (You can probably guess.)  Not so generous.

But instead of that, what if my first thought was, “Maybe he is late for work, and if he loses his job, he will lose his family’s insurance which is critical right now, because his wife is pregnant and his little boy is sick. His little boy has asthma! And he is running late because he had to find the misplaced inhaler. Which is why he was tailgating you. And by the way, he feels very bad about that, but it is critical that he get to work on time today.”

Thoughts like that?

They would change how I feel about that driver.

Sure, those thoughts may be wildly implausible.

But at least they are more fun.

Maybe my family could create a mantra to explain the actions of the harried, hurried drivers around us:  “Their baby is coming!” or “Their house is flooding!”

That would help me a little.

Also?

Along with these judgments of people, I am quick to judge situations. I assume I know when events are good and when they are bad.

There is an old Taoist story about a Chinese farmer who loses his horse. I love this story!  I first heard it in my centering prayer circle. Here is a YouTube version of it:   A Farmer Loses His Horse…

Go ahead and take a look, especially if you are not familiar with that tale. It is thought-provoking and beautifully shows why it is dangerous to quickly judge the things that happen to us as helpful or harmful. (Except? I am struggling with this whole Ukraine situation. I cannot see any way that it is not terrible).

I learned a lesson on my tendency to make quick judgments earlier this week. I posted a piece in my online writing group about a propane truck crash that shut down our local interstate for hours one day. I said that it was surely a great inconvenience for the folks who got caught in the backup, but added that the traffic tie-up was nothing compared to the tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine right now. I said that our lives here are sweet, that we are lucky, and that we should be deeply grateful for all the days that bombs are not falling on our houses, even if we have days when we get caught in five mile traffic jams.  In other words: “Suck it up, Buttercups.” On the scale of life hardships, our traffic woes do not even merit a mention.

(Of course, I was not affected by that traffic nightmare, so that made it easy for me to wax poetic about it; I was comfortable at home, enjoying my evening cup of tea. Additionally, the driver of the truck was injured, which also made the situation serious, not something that I should have  glossed over so easily.)

One of my friends in my online writing group challenged me on that piece. His comments helped me realize that it was presumptuous of me to assume that the traffic tie-up was no big thing for the folks who lost a few hours of their lives to that delay (or for the truck driver. Especially for the driver). My friend said, “We don’t know what their Ukraine moment is. It could be today.”

He was right.

Somebody stuck in that traffic gridlock could have lost a parent that day. Or a child. They could have been on the way to the hospital for one last goodbye  and missed it. Or been a no-show to a coffee date that might have turned out to be the start of a beautiful relationship. Or been late to a job interview.

I think that most people caught in that traffic jam would agree that while it was a huge nuisance, it did not come anywhere close to what the Ukrainian people are suffering now (while maintaining sympathy for the injured truck driver, of course.)

But there is no way to know for sure.

Which is why I shouldn’t be so quick to assume that I do.

We don’t know why people do the things they do (the annoying things. the beautiful things).  We don’t know how hard life is for them, their secret struggles and pain. We don’t know why they drive like they do on any certain day, or why they still love our last president so much.

So unless I have the chance to stop and ask, to get to know them, I shouldn’t assume.  I can let those judgments go.

Just another thing to release this year, a year where my word of the year is “release.”

I’m getting lots of practice.