Set Your House in Order Before Criticizing Others
Do you ever catch yourself judging and criticizing others? I know I do all the time, even if I don’t say anything, or do anything, judgmental thoughts and criticisms come to mind, and they seem almost impossible to stop. I know that in the past I would allow my negative judgements of people to take over how I saw them, and I would subconsciously think I was better than them in some way. However, as I moved through college, and since graduation, I have increasingly tried to avoid judging others without really getting to know them, and even once I know someone, I often find that the things about them that I criticize are also flaws that I have.
In Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for life, Rule 6 is to set your house in order before criticizing others. As I was reading this chapter something about it really resonated with me, something about it seemed familiar. Then Matthew 7:5 came to mind, “First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” This is what Jesus had to say about judging others, and the message is the same, fix yourself before you look to fix someone else.
Why are we quick to judge?
Judging stems from our perceptions of the world and other people. The thing is, our perceptions are directly related to who we are, and where we are emotionally. When we are in a positive mood, we will tend to see things in a more positive light, and the opposite is true when we’re upset.
The reason we see the world based on our perceptions, and not what’s actually there, is that we see what we expect to see in people. If we think someone is ignorant, dumb, annoying, or whatever, that’s exactly what we’ll see in them.
The worst part is that being unhappy, upset, and seeing the flaws in people is the default if you don’t do anything about it. When we are in that negative state, suddenly everyone’s flaws around us become unbearable, and we can’t help ourselves from judging them.
However, its not just about being negative, its also a lack of humility. When we try to fix others instead of ourselves, and especially when we try to tear others down by judging them, we are operating as if we are better than them. Remember that God made all people equal, and no one is better than anyone else.
How do we address our own problems?
If you find yourself in a bad place, you’re unhappy with how your life is going and where you currently are, you first have to ask yourself if you’ve been doing everything you can possibly do to set your life straight. If you’re being honest with yourself, you know that you’ve done some stupid things in your past, you definitely have not made the most of every advantage you’ve been given, and you haven’t always been purposeful about making yourself the best you could be.
The next step is to then go through your life with a fine-tooth comb and figure out what you’ve been doing wrong. Maybe you made some very big, bad decisions that you could’ve reasonably avoided, but because of whatever reason you chose not to. Maybe you have bad habits that are holding you back from making the most of your days. Whatever it is, you need to do an in-depth analysis of who you are, and what you have been doing that’s been making your life worse.
The next step is simple yet hard, begin fixing the things that are wrong with you. This step will require a lot of humility because it’s so much easier to push the blame onto others. Admitting you have problems that you can address, and actually addressing them will be very difficult.
So, remember that you’re not the judge of humanity, God is. Be humble enough to admit that you aren’t perfect, and that there are plenty of things you’ve done wrong in the past. Then be humble enough to actually address your inadequacies. Make yourself better, make yourself happier, live with humility, and you will find that you won’t feel the need to judge nearly as much. Good luck.