Don't Grudge

No—the title of this post is not a mistype. The concepts of judging and hypocrisy are topics I've been considering and thinking about a lot lately. It has resulted in a phrase Austin coined, and that I've adopted: "Don't Grudge."

In one of my previous posts, "We're All Hypocrites", I commented on how people tend to judge those closest to them. The reason judging is so toxic for relationships is because it quickly leads to holding a grudge. We frequently associate "a grudge" with the act someone else commits against us, where we become offended and then hold onto those feelings of hurt and resentment, thus "holding a grudge." I personally believe that a far more common example of acquiring said "grudge" is through passing judgment. It happens in just 3 simple steps:

Step 1: Judgment. We look at someone who is: doing something we'd never do; or that we don't approve of; or that we're ironically struggling with in our own life; or that we think they shouldn't be doing; and so on. We make an observation and then pass judgment. On someone else's life. Because somewhere in our brain we think we get to. It's all about us, right?

Step 2: Rationalization. Consciously or subconsciously, we naturally feel bad about passing that judgment. So we spend even more time rationalizing to ourselves, why we get to judge them and why our judgment is correct. We may not always do it in so many words, but consciously or subconsciously we analyze the scenario until we're sure of our rightness. That way, we can feel good about judging.

Step 3: "Grudgment". This rationalizing consumes our perspective of that person until we haven't just judged them, we've formed a grudge against them. Not only do we have negative feelings from judging them, but that negativity has transferred to the actual person! We can't see them as they really are, only as we perceive them to be through our own lens of judgment.

Who does it hurt? Everyone! The grudge instantaneously taints our relationship with that person, influencing the way we talk to them and act around them. Whether or not they know why we've become distant, or abrupt, or whatever, they will feel it. On top of that, we're carrying around these negative feelings like rocks in a backpack and it's weighing us down.

What we should each realize first, is that what works for me, in my life, is not a "one fits all" formula. Secondly, the majority of people do not make their life decisions with the question in mind: How can I really tick other people off today? No. In fact they are only asking themselves: What do I want to do in my life, for me? This isn't selfishness. It's individual agency.

We are born with a God-given right to act of our own free will, to choose any course we want. We have not been given the right to butt into other people's lives and tell them how to live. We can love, support, and understand others, even if we don't condone their actions or want to participate in their activities. Just as we want to be allowed to make our own triumphs or mistakes without public commentary, so should we respect any other person's rights to do so as well.

In the end, can we choose to judge and grudge? Absolutely! But why would we want to? Don't judge, don't grudge! Try harder to view people through a lens of pure love, unclouded by personal judgments, and see what a difference it can make in your own life and the lives of others.