When I was growing up, I was always admonished to “use good judgment.” But it seems like judgment has fallen on hard times. More and more I’m hearing people speak of “not being judgmental.” It sounds good at first, but if you think it through it doesn’t ring true. Growing in knowledge and wisdom should result in the development of one’s judgment, and once developed it ought to be used.<\/p>\n
In recent decades our culture has grown soft. I wonder if avoiding judgment isn’t just a way to sidestep uncomfortable truth. It’s become fashionable to “suspend judgment,” especially if using your judgment might be deemed to hurt the feelings of another. And, in the softening culture, anytime we express our disagreement its seen as an opportunity to exhibit hurt feelings. Maybe we should toughen-up a bit.<\/p>\n
I advocate “hardening” of our feelings—-not to the point of insensitive oblivion, but to the point that we can navigate through daily life without our emotions being hurt by the littlest slight. Get the chip off your shoulder. Life is tough. People say things. Not everybody agrees with you. But that’s doesn’t necessarily mean you should change your opinion. Maybe you are right and should stand on your conviction. However, if unchecked the \u00a0softening culture will tempt you to give in so you don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. That’s weak-mindedness. Don’t let it overtake you.<\/p>\n
You can be judgmental without being ugly. In fact, you can be overtly gracious and kind, and still be judgmental. But even then, you’ll offend because weak people don’t like truth accompanied by strength. Don’t let that dissuade you. There is life in truth.<\/p>\n
Think deeply. Train yourself to think soundly. Develop your judgment. Then don’t be afraid to use it! The world needs your sound-minded judgment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I was growing up, I was always admonished to “use good judgment.” But it seems like judgment has fallen on hard times. More and more I’m hearing people speak of “not being judgmental.” It sounds good at first, but if you think it through it doesn’t ring true. Growing in knowledge and wisdom should […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[30,25,36,73],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-right-and-wrong","tag-thinking","tag-truth","tag-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}