Judgment

I remember talking to my friend Tom about judgment and the dangers of perceiving things as good or bad. Judgment is definitely something I am trying to work on these days. I love the idea of changing and making myself more like the kind of person I want to become, it’s most of what I think about. I think constantly changing is one of the points of life. At the same time I also want avoid judging my current life as bad, and to be happy as things are.

I think it helps pretty much every aspect of your life to be happy, relationships, play, work. Not only does it make you more pleasant to be around, it also gives you a lot of extra physical and mental energy. Sidenote, I think being pleasant to be around is one of the most vastly underrated intangibles. On crappy days it’s a lot easier to be around some people. People who have a sixth sense for other’s moods, maybe. Realizing this, I am trying to make myself more pleasant to be around. I haven’t exactly figured out how though. Anyways, I think that extra energy has really helped me dive right into life in Portland, and getting involved in as much good stuff as possible. By being happy with myself and with the things I’m involved in, I don’t get as easily overwhelmed or burned out.

I think I read somewhere that staying in the moment has to do with non-judgmental consciousness. By attaining such an awareness that isn’t clouded by our judgments, we can begin to perceive things as they are and really understand what is going on around us. For example, if something bad happens like we get turned down for a job, we suddenly become blind to all the good things that could result from it. Maybe the job wasn’t exactly right us, or maybe the next job we come across is way better.

Nothing is universally good or bad, it’s all shades of grey. This sort of real understanding and being open to see all the results of an event is crucial to when I do re-evaluations of my life, and try to think about how much I like how I’ve been spending my days, and how it aligns with my goals.

So being less judgmental is two-fold helpful. It allows me to be happier with my own life, making my day to day existence more pleasant, which in turn gives me the chance to keep challenging myself. But it also prevents my many pre-conceived biases from getting in the way of real seeing what’s going on in my life.

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com