Passing Judgement

First off, I'm sorry to those who are reading that I've been a HORRIBLE blogger lately and haven't posted for a while.

What I really want to talk about today has nothing really to do with being a vegan or anything, but it's something that's been on my mind a lot lately and I feel the need to talk about. I have been working casually at the hospital the last couple of weeks to save up some money for school and there was recently a family we were working with that certain coworkers of mine termed "hippies". Now, I consider myself to be somewhat of a hippy. No, I don't smoke pot or do drugs, but I do eat a clean vegan diet and try to advocate for environmental awareness, etc. I love the planet, what can I say? I don't especially consider the term "hippy" to be offensive either. That being said, when someone says that a person and the room they are occupying in the hospital, "smells like hippy" in a derogatory tone, then I start to get my back up a little bit. Of course, being the trouble-maker that I am, I ask, "What exactly does hippy smell like?" to the nurse issuing the rude statement. I am then "informed" that hippies smell like unwashed dreadlocks or something equally ridiculous. I wish I could say that this was the only negative comment I heard towards this family, but again a few days later a completely different group of nurses were making equally rude jokes. It was mentioned that a certain individual was healing up really quickly and getting ready for discharge much sooner than anticipated and a nurse made a very sarcastic comment about how it must be all the "rocks" and shit the family were using. Let me clarify, the "rocks" they were talking about were gemstones that the family was using for crystal therapy. Something I know quite a bit about myself as I also practise gemstone therapy. I was actually too stunned to say anything. What I should have said was, "You are being quite condescending of their beliefs. How would you feel if you were made fun of for believing in Christ and wearing cross earrings? Just because you do not understand what they believe in does not give you the right to pass judgement."

Ultimately, why this bothers me so much is not because I can identify with this family and understand why they are the way they are (FYI, the room and the family smelt like nothing unusual as I had the opportunity to work with them). What really bothers me is how often we are quick to judge someone that we don't know. What makes people think that you can take one glance at a person and know them well enough to decide whether or not they have any value? In this world, we are all fighting our own battles and developing ourselves as people. None of us is more or less than the others. Passing judgement on each other actually does no good in this world. It is the foundation of ageism, sexism, racism, and any other form of stereotype you can think of. This happens when we pass judgement on another person and decide that for whatever reason that they are less than us. I recently read a quote on a motivational blog that says, "What Susie says of Sally says more of Susie than of Sally." And that has stuck with me. When a person jumps to conclusions about someone they don't know and proceeds to spread their filth on the world, they are showing the filth of their own soul, not whatever message they are trying to spread.

I know it sounds a bit "hippy-like" for me to preach about everyone learning to love instead of hate, but I really do think that this is probably one of the biggest keys to a happy life. So please, I beg of you, the next time you catch yourself "judging a book by its cover", stop and remind yourself that you know nothing of the person you are passing judgement on and that the world would be a better place if we could learn to accept people for who they are. What difference does it make in your life if so-and-so wears dreadlocks in their hair? What difference does it make to you if the gentleman across the street is gay? It makes no difference at all. Focus instead on your own life, on making yourself better. Focusing on what someone else does with their life wastes your time and energy when you could be using it to do something worth while. Just some food for thought.