Quick to judge

I had a conversation the other day with a relative. Here’s what it is in essence:

Relative: My boss had to work from home a couple of days back. Guess what’s the reason?

Me: I guess it could be to babysit a child or something? (since this is the most often used reason for myself when I had to work from home, mostly because Ally fell sick).

Relative: Guess how old the “baby” is?

Me: (randomly picks a number) perhaps 3 or 4?

Relative: well, the “baby” is actually 15!

From there, I had a not so positive continnum forming out of this situation. Firstly, because I am a working mother myself and can understand if a child is sick. But secondly, babysitting a 15 year-old?

I narrated the situation to Dave and he’s first reply was “Don’t be too quick to judge”.

What if perhaps the teenager was down with something more serious than the common flu, and that, perhaps warrant a caretaker to be around?

I didn’t consider that possibility, but simply started to judge because I hear that a 15 year- old was being babysitted.

It then dawned to me that yes, I began forming a perception of what it is based on what I had heard, and possibly, that might not be the whole picture. 

More often that not, we want to believe in things in what we think it is without seeking clarification sometimes, on the presumption that what we see and hear is the whole picture itself. 

In a previous blog post, The social stigma of downsizing, I discussed how we are quick to judge when people are downsizing to a smaller place.

Perhaps similarly, when we see other living the high life, dining at exquisite restaurants, travelling to exotic locations, the sense of envy overwhelms us, thinking that wow…. that is totally awesome!

Yes, that’s awesome, but perhaps there might be some underlying debt that we are not aware of.

What we see might not be the whole picture. What we hear might not be exactly what it is.

Before we are quick to judge, perhaps take a step back and think of the possibilities of why that might be the case.

You’ll probably feel a bit more different than how you had felt initially.