The Judgmental You

Photographer: Ralp Villaver Cuevo

Most people nowadays seem to have become judgmental. I wonder why?

Is it because it’s much easier to perceive an irrational thought rather than to dwell in a more reasonable thinking?

Seventeen years ago, at the same month and at the same time, I was sitting in front of a 386 computer and staring at a Viewsonic CRT monitor.

That was seventeen years ago. Surprisingly, here I am right now; a bit aged and doing the same thing. Only this time, the Viewsonic wasn’t a CRT anymore but an 18.5 wide-LCD.

I was thinking of how so many things had happened to me during those years. Things that I never thought I could go through with.

People may see me as I am right now but there is so little thing they know about me.

They may know me as a cheerful and always smiling person or it may be the other way around. I’ve been of course, accused of being hot-tempered a couple of times and I never contested to that for it may be or may not be true.

But how people look at me is the same as how most people tend to look at others.

Shallow. That is the right word for it.

The truth is I don’t really care.  People know too little about me that having said that, I’ve learned to disregard their biased observation and dismiss their passive judgmental thinking.

Ironically, those who would often say negative about me did seem to be worse than I did.

I don’t feel sorry for their lack of enthusiasm for digging a deeper sense of understanding rather than go quickly in to saying things which are not of value, but I do feel sorry for their lack of courage to say those things in front of me.

What do they know about me?

Not much.

I have slowly inched my way to where I am right now. It is not the typical thing that you get overnight.

I’ve learned to be patient and came to realization that I should push myself to be self-motivated to do things which I knew others would not care to do for me. And that was not easy.

For instance, they see me type rapidly on keyboard nowadays. I just don’t know why someone feels obliged to comment immediately after that because most of the time I would hear them saying “Ang bilis mo mag-type. Ilang taon ka na sigurong nagpa-practice.”

But did they know that I worked as a typist before? No of course not.

I smile at the idea that most people think I learned to blind-type in school and that how they think I was persistent. It just adds more proof to my view that people tend to quickly judge others by what they see in what you do.

Did I ask to be like that? The answer is segment of yes.

There’s a difference between having to do something because you like it and having to do something because you need it. It’s a matter of a “no-choice” situation.

Back then, I got lucky to have been hired as a typist. Those were the days that work was scarce and job hunting was as difficult as finding needle on the haystack.

But was being a typist an easy job?

Imagine you to be typing more or less 100 pages each day for 6 days a week and earning 115 pesos a day. All other living expenses which include food and clothing must be taken from that as well. How long do you think you could go on with it?

It took me a whole damn year before I realized it was not getting me anywhere anymore.

Whatever came after that was another part of history and I could go on and on but I wouldn’t want to waste your precious time reading about my sad stories.

I was merely trying to point out how I loathed people with shallow minds who were so free enough to stick their noses on other people’s life that they knew so little about.

People who always use their selves as example; people who think they know everything.

Honestly, I don’t hide my dismay when someone says “He should have done this.” Don’t be surprised if you see me walking away from you while you talk about shit before me. I’m just being what I am.

I do believe that one’s assertiveness on what they think about others can be controlled. Although at some point it may not, I still think that we should at least try not to be.

We are living in a bizarre world where they say the fittest are the ones who survive most. If this is true, shouldn’t we be thinking about how we should think and talk about others?

After all, they are still here. It only means that they are as good as you as well.