March 29, 2010: "He who lives in a glass house should not throw glass at other houses..."

Indignation. Arrogance. Judgment.

All of us silently judge everyone we meet, even if it's just a casual glance, we notice something about all the people we see on tv, the internet, or in person. We decide if someone is good looking or bad and whether or not their shoes or whatever they're wearing looks cool or dorky. It's in our nature and whether we like it or not,it's just something we do out all the time. Many of us want to say that we don't judge people without knowing them in person, knowing something of who they are and how they are. Unfortunately, that's just not true no matter how down to earth someone is. And if you say otherwise, you're either a fool or a liar. It's dependent on the individual which of those it is. If you have ever looked at a person of the same / opposite sex and thought, "Oh, they're cute", you're one of us judgmental jerks.

Either way, whether you admit you're one of us or not, it doesn't matter. I know and that's alright with me. But what gets me is those of us who are so indignant that we cannot recognize the faults in ourselves. Those us of us who in turn are too arrogant to fully accept our faults, and those of us who falsify the act of being humble. And finally, those of us who judge others for their shortcomings. We shouldn't judge anyone else any further than we judge ourselves. We shouldn't pretend to be humble, but we should look inside ourselves to really mean the act of being humble and allow it to bring us down from pride. If pride is a sin, then we're all sinners. But what saves us is accepting the sin and asking forgiveness from it. As a catholic, albeit a loose one, I understand that no man on earth is too holy to escape temptation and sin. But as long as we repent for our wrongs, we should be okay in the long run. I don't mean for this to sound like a religious preaching by any means, but it's the best way to look at our lives. Remember the things we've done wrong, recognize the wrong itself, how we got ourselves to that point, and the people and things we've hurt in the process, even ourselves. We will all make mistakes with our lives, it's just important to recognize them. But it's just as important not to obsess over them, and possibly doubly important to recognize our successes. Our failures are the times where we judge ourselves the harshest, and others failures and shortcomings are where we judge them the harshest. But when we judge others we fail to judge ourselves. Life is about balance. It's important to judge others but it's equally important to honestly judge ourselves. And not just the parts of us we want to see, not just the parts the blinders don't hide. We need to make sure we judge ALL of ourselves, just to help ourselves a little bit more.

Love, Polly.