“When you find yourself judging someone, take a step back. Ask yourself, what deep underlying insecurity or fear is this person triggering in me? During the most judgmental phases of my life, I was also extremely insecure and unhappy. I couldn’t face my own insecurities and unhappiness so instead, I chose to reflect these feelings onto others in the form of judgment. Today, when I feel myself becoming judgmental towards anyone, it serves as a nice reminder that I have some internal work to do and I do it.”
Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 136)
“We will not take personally a slight or a screw-up we have been guilty of ourselves—because we remember that when we did it, it was not personal or even intentional. When we recall how dumb we were when we were young, we won’t be so quick to judge the generation coming after us. When we consider all the current beliefs we will be judged for by that generation, perhaps we can be a little more tolerant of the older generation in front of us. We’ve all messed up. We will all continue to mess up. Does it really benefit us—is it really fair—to go around condemning people for mistakes we’ve made ourselves? For going astray as we have gone astray? No. It doesn’t.”
Ryan Holiday, Daily Stoic Blog
“‘Turst your feelings!’ —But feelings are nothing final or original; behind feelings there stand judgments and evaluations which we inherit in the form of… inclinations, aversions. The inspiration born of a feeling is the grandchild of a judgment—and often of a false judgment!—and in any event not a child of your own! To trust one’s feelings—means to give more obedience to one’s grandfather and grandmother and their grandparents than to the god which are in us: our reason and our experience.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, via The Daily Laws (Page 387)
“People normally see you through the very thick lens of their own past. Letting our lives be defined by the valuations/judgments that others place on us, is a quick path to people pleasing and constant dissatisfaction. If you want to do your life justice, then you need to simply be kind, walk gently, have compassion, but above all, live in a way that honors your truth. It is possible to view others without judgment, to see them through a lens of acceptance, but that takes intentional practice and healing work to relieve yourself of the thickness of ego.”
Yung Pueblo
“Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgment from another person as ‘good.’ And the measure of what is good or bad about that act is that person’s yardstick. If receiving praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person’s yardstick and put the brakes on one’s own freedom.”
Ichiro Kishimi, The Courage To Be Disliked
“just because someone was wrong once, it doesn’t mean they are going to be wrong forever. similarly, just because we may perceive someone as wrong, it does not necessarily mean that we are right. in most cases we lack the perfect information required to form an objective and universal perspective. it is important to remember that we are all imperfect and that we all live through the limited perspective of ego. striving to learn as much as we can from one another without making harsh and permanent judgments is a sign of wisdom.”
Yung Pueblo, Inward (Page 183)
“Develop the habit of suspending the need to judge everything that crosses your path. Consider and even momentarily entertain viewpoints opposite to your own, seeing how they feel. Do anything to break up your normal train of thinking and your sense that you already know the truth.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 109)
“Nobody is rooting for you to fail. You may succeed. You may fail. But, for the most part, nobody cares one way or the other. This is good. The world is big and you are small, which means you can chase your dreams with little worry for what people think.”
James Clear, Blog