I Don't Mean To Judge...

It has been suggested that perhaps my irrational fear of being judged by everyone actually comes from the fact that I am a very judgmental person myself. It's not something that I do on purpose, but I can't help it.

Sometimes it's little things. Like, whenever I see a really pretty girl with a cigarette in her hand, I grow sad at watching her wasting her beauty on dirty teeth and fingers, and bad smelling hair. Or when I see a beautiful face covered in tattoos or piercing, I wonder why they would want to put holes in such a lovely face. Is it unfair of me to judge them as less attractive, or odd because when I look at them I see them ruining their beauty? From their point of view, maybe they're enhancing it.

I do the same thing in so many other scenarios. When I'm in the elevator at school, I play a game taught to me by another student at my school. When he got onto a crowded elevator, he would look around at the other people in the elevator, and try to guess what floor they were going to. You see, the floors in a specific building are divided by department - fourth floor is Music, fifth floor is Theatre and Film, sixth floor is Psychology, seventh floor is Anthropology... I don't remember all the others off the top of my head, ninth floor is Physics, tenth is Geography, and the fifteenth floor is Art. You get the point. The whole idea of the game is to look at someone, and try to guess their major. This seemed innocent enough, but when the other student first explained it, he said "When I see a group of girls getting into the elevator, I always know they're going to the sixth floor". I feel guilty for making such assumptions.

When I'm in the cafeteria, or at the grocery store, I always look at what other people are buying, and what they're eating. I wonder why the mother with the overweight child tagging along is buying so much junk food. I smile inwardly at the man in front of me in the checkout line places his vegetarian meat substitutes on the conveyor belt. I groan to myself as I watch the girl with the supermodel body carry a tray with two slices of pizza and a soda, secretly hating that she can eat it and not gain a pound.

I don't know these people, but I find myself assigning them personality traits for no apparent reason. Is it human nature, or am I just a terrible person?

I tell myself that when I hurry past the hooded male figure on my way home late at night that I would rush warily by them regardless of race, and that it's only fair that I should be cautious. I tell myself that I am justified in preferring to sit next to women on the bus, if I have a choice. But at the root of it all, I am woefully influenced by my groundless judgements.

Do you think you are a judgmental person? How do your judgements impact your day to day life? Do you think that they necessarily have a negative impact? Are some judgements natural?

~Jessica