Hey, hello sunshine. And how have you been this week? Hope you’ve been fine. You know, a little while ago, I have to admit, I had to catch myself because I found myself being overly judgmental and critical of a particular post I had seen of a very famous actress.
And I caught myself bang there in the middle of all of the judgments that I was passing, mentally of course. And I promise you, if any of you were sitting across the table from me at that particular moment, you would have seen my face filled with these subtitles. And it made me wonder, are we as human beings becoming so hardwired that we find faults with others constantly? Because I can assure you, this is not something that is exclusive to just me.
All of us judge, maybe not all the time, but let’s face it, we judge. Like Zig Zagler said, people find fault like there’s a reward for it. But the real question is, are we fixing our own lives? Or is it easier to escape all that and find faults in others’ lives? In this world is filled with so many people.
There are people who climb mountains. There are a few who have dedicated their lives to making others’ lives better, like finding a cure for a disease. There are people who rescue puppies.
But despite all of that, there are people and a vast majority of them, I would say almost everyone, who are fault finders and expert fault finders. You know it’s as though criticism isn’t just a hobby today, it’s a lifestyle. Because finding out someone else’s faults requires all of us to be vigilant and alert.
And mind you, when it comes to finding faults, we are all very vigilant and alert. Let’s just admit it, few things give our brains more dopamine than silently judging someone from the moral pedestal that we’ve built for ourselves in our heads. Simple things like, why does this guy chew like he’s auditioning to be the background noise in a horror movie? Why is he chewing so loudly? Why does she have so much makeup on all the time? Why does she dress up in such loud colours? Why does he talk in this animated manner? Etc, etc and it’s insuriating.
Also kind of entertaining. But here’s the twist. As fun as it is to find faults in others, it’s usually a sneaky little distraction from facing our own little weird habits.
It’s easier to notice that someone else is always late, than to admit that we probably have not cleaned our work desk for weeks together. We all walk around with these invisible scorecards, don’t we? Silently deducting points from people who don’t match up to our standards. Finding faults doesn’t make us better.
Just a simple reminder. It just makes us tired and judgy and frankly unpleasant to be around. Yes, judging, critiquing.
Mentally it’s easy for most of us because few things are as weirdly satisfying as noticing someone else’s flaws. It gives us this odd sense of superiority or control, like you call it. Like, look at them.
They’re so imperfect. Now, we don’t do it out loud because yes, we pretend to be very civilised, don’t we? We judge people for being late, for being loud, for not texting back fast enough, for texting back too fast. Basically, if you’re breathing wrong, someone somewhere is annoyed about it.
And the best part? We’re all doing it constantly. Which means right now, as you’re listening to this episode, someone might be judging you for the way you tie your shoelaces. Or your very questionable taste in books or TV shows, if you’ve been talking about those to others.
So, what is the solution? You know, and I have to be honest, I’m still learning. But maybe, catching ourselves in the act. Trying on a little bit of empathy.
Like not being so quick to judge why someone’s talking so loudly or why someone dresses up the way she does. The simple truth is, the more time you spend finding flaws in others, the less time you have to find connection. Everyone is carrying something that we don’t know anything about.
We don’t know what kind of day they’ve had. We don’t know what’s keeping them up at night. We don’t know why they dress up the way they do.
We don’t know why they talk loudly. Or why they’re so animated when they talk. We don’t know the reasons, right? Because let’s be honest, we’re all kind of a mess.
It’s just that some of us are louder about it. So what if we tried, just for one day, to let some of the small stuff go? Radical. But it helps.
People are annoying. It’s a fact. But then so are we.
So maybe we learn to give each other a little grace. And today I want to thank each one of you for listening to me, for listening to this episode. And if this episode has made you laugh or cringe a little bit or maybe smile a little bit or maybe get you to even reflect for a second, share it with those perfectly imperfect human beings you call your friends or your social circle.
Because we’re all perfectly imperfect. We’re all learning in this journey in life. We’re all flawed.
So try to be kind, especially to yourself. I’ll speak to you again next week. Take good care of yourselves.
Love you all so much. Bye for now.
