The talent of first sight judgment

The talent of first sight judgment

Advancement in psychology has opened many pages of human mind, revealing every layer, which acts as cause of a person's behavior. Any creature except human being on the earth behaves to ensure his survival amid the situation it is in, but in human being, situations and happenings initiate a thought process. When we confront a situation, first we perceive it, judge it and then react or behave. For example, you see fire around you (a situation) your all the experience and knowledge tells you about the nature of fire and its effect on you (judgment). Lastly, you decide to run away, extinguish it or anyhow safeguard yourself (reaction or behavior). 'Judgment' which is conclusion of your whole thought process, is the most responsible factor for your behavior in any situation. It is the most fundamental base of our behavior and survival. 

However, psychology has found that most of our conclusions are not result of our rational thinking; rather mostly, it is because of our prejudice thinking. We judge things very fast without even bothering things before it and after it. We only see and perceive things present in that particular moment. Till the time knowledge is limited, 'judgment' cannot be justified and until the judgment is justified, it is full of prejudice and bias. We can call it as judgmental error. In our daily life, we often judge ourselves, people around us and also events evolving every minute. However, while doing this many times we fix opinions about people or situations, which in general is called as judgmental. Being judgmental has always been an unattractive trait. We can easily observe that most judgmental people are disliked and avoided. Doing judgment is an important aspect of our life and survival, if not addressed carefully; it may lead to devastating results in future. 

Knowledge plays an important role in judgment, yet we err in our judgment quite often. It is because we arrive on conclusions in haste. As we know, many times what we see in front of our eyes is half-truth. We often decide quickly while judging, either self or others. Both these conditions are harmful. Suppose during a speech, you forgot few specially selected lines in between due to some reason. After speech if it struck your mind that, your memory is weak, then it may lead to inferiority complex and on the contrary, if somebody else got this feeling he may develop superiority complex. The most amusing thing is that most of us have a pre set mind that capability of judging at first sight is a gift which few people receive. This might have developed due to some incidental judgment, which turned out to be true, but they forget that not every day is Sunday.

A story from the diary of some unknown author depicts the concept in a very practical way. Story narrates that,

"There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent each of them on a quest. He asked them to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away. The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all gone and came back, he called them together to describe what they had seen. The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted. The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise. The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen. The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they all were right, in what they had seen but they saw only one season of the tree's life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are. The pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall. Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest. Don't judge life by only one difficult season. Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come sometime or later."

Here, it seems that capability of judgment is only with old man, as he knew everything about the tree. It is true for a normal life but spirituality goes beyond the judgment, it seeks for the ultimate truth. In the place of old person if we put 'Mahavira' he will say even old man is not true, as any decision is true only in a particular condition and time. So like every son who is true in a particular condition and time, same is old man. The old man too at some point of view can be said to know less than reality but still for common people, he is better than what others are. Here old man teaches the chapter of totality.

Judging things is natural and comes to us naturally. We start practicing it unconsciously like 'Highway Hpnosis'. Judgmental is not developing some opinion for a short, judgmental is when you define things based on these short opinions and conclude whole nature and quality. Being judgmental is deriving conclusions and formulating opinions based on limited information, which do not, represents the entire situation. Being judgmental involves small percentage of the facts.