I don’t know about you, but I tend to form judgements about others very quickly.
Through my years of growing up, knowingly or unknowingly, I accumulated a huge database in my mind of the “acceptable” & “unacceptable” traits of humans, and how I should react to them in any given situation.
Thinking back, it was my means of protecting myself from harm or abuse from others. In each experience where I was bullied, taken advantage of, or deeply affected, I always tried my best to ensure that history will never repeat itself. Back then, I didn’t know how to access the higher wisdom within & around me. As such, my mind went on an overdrive to do what it could to protect me; by meticulously recording each painful experience that happened, the traits of the person who harmed or abused me, and how I could have protected myself in that situation.
Besides my personal experience, I was also influenced by the beliefs, opinions & judgements from my parents, community & mass media. Back then, it seemed logical to absorb these learnings from others, so that I will not repeat their mistakes. My mind absorbed everything around me like a sponge, almost unfiltered. It didn’t cross my mind to doubt what was presented to me as the truth, or more accurately, the perceived truth of others.
In addition, my initial years of working with a difficult boss were instrumental in honing my ability to see the worst in others.
As I have shared in an earlier blog post, the work culture in most law firms is fast-paced, highly stressful and unforgiving. It is a place often credited with “the survival of the fittest”, where everyone’s survival instincts run high. One common technique to survive is to uplift yourself by lowering others. As such, it is not uncommon for fellow lawyers & secretaries to backstab, badmouth or gossip about others, in a bid to win trust from, and forge alliances with, influential equity partners. In desperate times when the market is not doing well & under-performing lawyers risk being retrenched, some would feel the urgency to do everything they could to retain their job. Even if it means having to sacrifice others.
I didn’t realise until I experience it myself on several occasions. Few months into my role as an associate in a large law firm, I started to fare better than my boss, at least in terms of quality billable hours. When I first started, I was working with my boss, as well as his boss directly. Most of the time, I was able to do the work independently with minimal guidance. His boss noticed my capability & started entrusting me with more files to work on. After awhile, my boss felt threatened by my presence, and made attempts to badmouth about me to his boss, each time an opportunity arises. On one occasion, someone discovered a mistake in a document which I was working with my boss. My boss scolded me several times, from the time the mistake was discovered to the time I rectified the mistake. It wasn’t even a serious mistake. That night, while attempting to repair the faulty printer outside of his boss’ office, I overheard my boss telling his boss how careless & incapable I was, having failed to discover the mistake in that document. After that occasion, I started noticing his habit of walking to his boss’ room to gossip, each time after he had scolded me. Over time, I became very cautious & mistrusting towards others.
Even after I had switched careers, that suspicion & mistrust towards others stayed with me.
For every person I meet, and every situation I encounter, I never fail to see the worst in them first. It was my means of protecting myself from harm, by pre-empting any perceived risk before it develops. It sounded most rational to me, to over-prepare & see the worst in others, than to under-prepare & expose myself to harm.
As a result, over the years, I formed judgements towards almost everyone in the entire organisation. It could be good, bad or even neutral judgements towards others, mostly based on my perceptions of how they handled the legal query sent to me. For example, people who frequently label their queries as urgent, are often judged by me to be selfish & incapable of being trusted. It reminds me of the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, by triggering false alarms of urgency unnecessarily. Also, people who frequently take on the middleman’s role of passing information around without value-adding, are often judged by me to be lazy & similarly incapable of being trusted. In addition, I assumed that people would never change, therefore my judgements of them remained applicable, unless proven otherwise. In other words, they were guilty unless proven innocent.
In recent weeks, I started to observe my judgements as they arise in the work context. I wanted to understand what are these judgements, whether it is correct, and whether it is aligned to my highest good. As I started taking stock of my judgements mentally, I was initially quite shocked at the amount of judgements that I have accumulated over the years. In particular, I didn’t realise how deeply I have judged almost everyone in the entire organisation, be it good, bad or neutral.
Judgements may not always be bad. In the work context, we may need to make certain judgements towards others, in order to effectively assist them or complete the work sent to us. At a personal level, we may need to make certain judgements towards ourselves, in order to help ourselves to learn, grow & evolve.
Therefore, I think that much depends on our intention in making these judgements. Some questions that I have been asking myself these days:
- Is that a judgement?
- Is the judgement correct or wrong? How do I know? Where does it come from?
- Am I making the judgement with the intent to benefit or effectively assist myself/others?
- Or am I making the judgement out of anger, hatred, resentment, ill-will, jealousy, need to backstab, badmouth or gossip about others, disempowerment, or the like?
I find these questions helpful for me, in deciding whether to choose to retain each judgement or not.
I also realise that judgements take up a lot of my energy & mental space, which could perhaps be allocated for better use. For example, it doesn’t really help me to constantly remind myself of how others have harmed me or let me down, for it only brings added suffering to me each time. I can choose not to engage in this mental suffering.
Interestingly, in recent weeks, I have been shown how biased some of my judgements may be. Hence, I may need to revisit some of these judgements. For example, there was a particular client who wrote to me on a work matter, which required us to work on a draft contract together. Few years back, I had assisted this client on another contract, which left me with a negative impression of her. Back then, I judged her to be lazy, inefficient & selfish because I felt that she didn’t do her fair share of work, dumped everything on me to clean up the mess for her, took a long time to work on the contract, but expected me to reply urgently each time the contract was sent to me. It took more than half a year for the contract to be finalised, due to multiple requests for amendments by the other party’s lawyers. In my mind, I blamed her for the delay & my suffering. Fast forward to today, I realised how much she has improved over the years. She was prompt in replying to my emails & working on the draft contract, and proactive in initiating quick calls with me to clarify the details. I was secretly impressed. This incident also made me realise that people do change & improve; it is not right for me to assume that people will never change.
As I continue to observe my judgements, I am also learning to be slow to judge others. This requires me to make a conscious choice of which judgements I choose to retain, and which judgements I choose to release.
Till next time, take care! 🙌🏻
Masters, would you have anything to share with us?
Dear children, we recognise that it is not easy to be slow to judge, or even not to judge others unnecessarily. Our human minds are wired to find faults in others & ourselves by operating on autopilot. It takes a greater commitment & awareness of self to start noticing these issues that often go unnoticed or taken for granted. So we applaud your efforts in trying to work through these issues. Know that we will always be around to support you, and you will not be left behind.
Blessings to All! 🤍🙏🏻
