How to Stop Judging others and Open Your Mind.

If you want to help someone, give them what they ask for, or don’t give.

How can you help someone?

Stop judging: If I wanted to help someone I wouldn’t give money to people who asked for it but I would buy them food, for example. That is a popular idea. But what are we doing when we do that? What does the Bible say about that? Thou shalt not judge, yet that is often all that we ever do.

We are judging machines. What is good, that one is bad, those people are …. Enough is enough. Judging may have served us in many ways such as judging the safest time to cross the street, but we let it take over our lives. From the actors in our favorite tv shows to our kids and our neighbors, oh, and politicians.

The second definition of discriminate suits us better – to be able to tell the difference. But to judge good or bad, we are told not to. This is the idea in at least Christianity and Buddhism.

How to stop judging others?

We do it all the time. But when we choose to help someone and we take away their power to decide what they want by giving them something other than what they want, we are taking on the role as their father, and for their own good because we are making sure they don’t do something we judge as bad with the money. But we have to be careful when we play the role of help giver. Be careful we do not also take the role of judge.

Of course, there are common sense exceptions. I would not consider giving an obviously harmful item to anyone who asked. But I want to ask us to think about our helping a bit differently. To create helpful helping, thinking about helping in ways that are 100% helpful to the person in need, and helpful to us and our happiness also.

I met an Indian truck driver who gave me pause to think about my philosophy of giving. He said that if someone really needed help with a cigarette and I am having a helping nature but I am against smoking, so I buy him a pack of gum, for example, when I want to help someone it’s really not helping them to give something I think he should have and he doesn’t want.  He wants a cigarette and I give him gum. What an ass I am. No matter how much helping nature I am having. So, anyone can help but we should keep our egos at bay.

Stop Judging People:

Anyone can help and helping is great for everyone, but I hope to be able to think carefully about giving what someone asks for and not what I think is best for them.

Or choose to not give. But I will try to not give him something he knows he does not want. I am not his parent and he is not a child. One of the keys to happiness is to stop judging people and things and events as good or bad. We are not God. Actually, we are God, but most have not really accepted that yet. It is so easy to judge others and not see oneself. Even when we tell ourselves we are judging for the right reason.

Discrimination and judging are different. The second definition of discrimination is to know the difference. The first delimitation of judging is judging between right and wrong, good and bad. The worst thing for everyone involved would be to think one is in a superior position to be the giver of help over the one needing help.

The ego comes in and can destroy any good work. And remember the only sure thing is that things change – next time the roles could reverse. And as they say, karma is a b$#%.

But who is to say what is right and what is wrong? Doing something right could have the wrong effect on the innocent person who is just caught up in the situation. Good for some can be really bad for others. And often we judge so fast based on little information so, don t judge too quickly. Jumping to conclusions can wear people out.

We see someone wearing worn clothes and we jump to conclusions. We hear a rumor about someone and the bad things they did, even though they are the nicest people to us.  So, it is best to not judge and make assumptions when we don’t know the situations of other people or the truth behind the rumors.

Shabby clothes, maybe a relative just died. Who knows? The best thing to do if possible might be to try talking to them. That could be the best way to help. One thing I do know is when I practice not judging it makes me happier because carrying the responsibility of judging everyone I come in contact with and even all those I hear and read about is an exhausting job and I don’t even get paid for it, so I decided  –   I QUIT!

And now I have time to enjoy my retirement. How can you help someone? Like everything else, ask from our hearts and do not listen to our egos.