Forty four ~ Live and let Live

Imagine we just invested many hours planning, designing and finally creating a sumptuous meal for a dinner party we were having in the evening.  Once we have made the food, we are careful to protect the food from maggot laying flies entering our kitchen and spoiling our hard work.  So too we should be careful to protect our positivity from negative "flies" entering our lives. (isn't that the truth?!?!)

Our ability to remain positive and focused on the good in our lives and other people is often hampered by various negative influences that we may have in our lives.  The influences may be certain people, places or activities that we do.  If we want to maintain our positive focus we need to learn to navigate through these negative influences that threaten to tip us off balance.

We are all judges of our own kingdom.  We judge people, places and events all day long.  In order to lead a life full of joy and happiness, we need to learn how to be objective, benevolent, but true and fair judges.  We need to know when to distance ourselves from destructive influences, and when to try and rehabilitate those destructive influences and allow them to remain around us.  When judging we need to be truthful to ourselves, we need to see the good in others, events and situations, and at the same time we need to be fully cognizant of the negativity that they may introduce.

We judge others whether we like it or not, it is a human trait to decode the environment we are living in, and judge how that affects us and act accordingly.  Judging others doesn't mean walking around with a condemning mindset, that's a good way to be miserable.  judging others means seeing the good and the not so good, then putting both of these in perspective, and analysing how this person, place or event impacts on us and the other people around us.  If we conclude that the person, place or event is having a negative effect on us then we decide what to do.

Think about a person you don't like very much.

Now ask yourself:  "Why don't I like him/her?"

Is it a feeling?  Is it based on evidence, facts, experience, etc?

Now ask yourself:

1. Am I being fair and objective in my judgment of this person?
2. Have I honestly looked at this person?
3. Am I able to see the good side of them as well as the bad?
4. Am I distancing myself from this person because they are likely to be a negative influence on me or others?

If you answered no to any of the questions then you will benefit greatly from learning the skills of being able to objectively judge others.

In order to be happy, upbeat and vibrant people we need to know how to deal with drag-me-down types of people in a loving but firm manner.  We don't need to let negative influences on us make us into bitter or angry people.  We can learn to judge objectively, taking nothing "personally" and leave our negative emotions out of it.

We can be assertive and caring, happy and firm, loving and self-assured all at the same time.  This exercise will teach us the first step, and that is getting in touch with how we currently judge people.  Over the next few days we will be looking at various ways to become a better judge and hopefully by the end of the section we will be a loving, confident, wise and objective judge.

Warren, S. 2010, 7 Ancient Keys To Happiness, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform