Judging Others and Ourselves

Self-judgment arises from not living up to our expectations of who we could be or our ideal selves. We judge ourselves based on how we judge others -- the criteria against which we base our value is what we assume the value of others should be based on. So, what is important to us gets translated into a universal metric. However, the problem is not in the judgment itself, but in being judgmental or overly-critical. In other words, the judgment as a defense mechanism shifts the spotlight from us, onto another person. This arouses feelings of superiority by reassuring ourselves that we're not "as bad" as the next person. Since we consider the behavior of others as a threat to our own virtue and dignity, we feel as though we have gained validation by criticizing others.

The inferiority complex underlying this judgementalism means that we are harming ourselves along the way – preventing us from feeling fully secure with ourselves. At the end of the day, judging others and ourselves go hand-in-hand with accepting others and ourselves. Once we open our minds and perceive "flaws" as an inevitable, yet fluid human trait, we can combat such positively reinforced behavior. By stepping out of our comfort zones and striking conversations with random strangers, I believe that meeting new people can really help tackle this problem. For me, the more people I meet, the more exposure I get to people coming from various kinds of backgrounds. This way, we gain insight into the complexity of us -- from our perspectives to personalities. Once we acknowledge our own faults, we stop being overly-critical of others -- instead of being judgmental, we begin to understand and accept both others and ourselves.

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