Judgment Is What We Do
Judgmental Is What Others Do To Us
Judgment and Judgmental are two concepts that are easily confused. They aren’t the same. Judgment is something everyone uses everyday for every decision. It’s a process we go through before making decisions.
Sometimes we side with our better judgment. Sometimes we ignore better judgment. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad but either way, the outcome is what we do to ourselves.
There are many skills needed to make good judgments (analytical thinking, emotional intelligence, patience, ethics, pragmatism, and more) but the more important issue is something we don’t usually talk about.
We need to make judgments because we don’t automatically have all the answers to the situations that confront us regularly.
We are not all-knowing. We can’t see all the details.
King Solomon’s first test as a leader is a good example. When two prostitutes squabbled over a baby, Solomon relied on a skill we don’t often associate with good judgment, emotional intelligence (I Kings 3:16-28).
It was a tangled mess. Two mothers were claiming to be the parent of one baby and there was no clear physical evidence to prove one true and the other false.
The ability to judge these situations was scarce. No one knew how to solve this problem so they resorted to the King. The good judgment he employed in solving this problem made him widely respected and it reveals the value of good judgment.
It wasn’t Solomon’s charisma, good looks or physical stature that won the hearts of his people. It was his wisdom (good judgment) that made him great in their eyes.
Good Judgment Is Used For Strategy And Problem Solving
Everyone knows nutrition is important but we need more than that. How much we should eat, when we should eat, what we should eat are questions answered by employing good judgment.
Going with little food infrequently and toughing it out is a judgment but it’s not a good judgment. That’s what we do when we aren’t thinking, when judgment is rushed.
Quick judgments are sometimes necessary but they are never the first resort when we have time for making considerations.
What we should eat, how much we should save, how we should save it, how we spend free time, what careers we should pursue are questions answered by the judgments we make.
Judgment is a way to strategize life trajectory. Where do I want to go? Where should I go? What is the best plan for getting there?
Taking the time to answer such questions is an exercise in judgment, and we’ll sometimes do the best we can and still get it wrong, meaning it is a developed skill. But it develops only as long as we learn from the experience.
Good judgment produces desirable outcomes. Bad judgment produces consequences. Learning happens with both, or that’s the way it should be.
Good financial judgment means we live within our means and following that rule consistently produces wealth overtime. Poor financial judgment leads to financial decline.
The inclination toward good judgment becomes stronger as we develop a taste for the good outcomes it produces.
Judgment is a mental exercise. We either engage it or bypass it. The more considerate we are – the more time we spend thinking – the more likely we are to make the right decision. Quick decisions, although sometimes necessary, are associated more with bad judgment.
But bad judgments are still judgments.
Either way, these are learning experiences. Or they should be.
Some people seem to make one bad decision after another, compounding the consequences. Bad judgments become addictive. One bad financial decision follows another until they bottom out.
Why does that happen? Why do some people never learn?
Parents have a part to play in this. They are responsible to guide their children in this process and the development of good/bad judgment starts early in each person’s life.
Parents should model, explain and lead children through the experience of making judgments. Intuitively, we know this but we also know that parents often fail at the critical moments.
The question is why? What is happening at these moments that inhibits learning.
The answer has to do with being judgmental.
Judgmental Is The Enemy Of Good Judgment
No one makes only good judgments so it’s inevitable that kids will make their fare share of bad judgments. They have little knowledge and even less experience. We’ve all been there and done that.
And there’s no shortage of responses.
When anyone makes a bad decision there are numerous onlookers – some close, some not so close – who have something to say about it usually in the negative
That was stupid, why did you do that?
That is what we call judgmental and we’ve all heard it and probably expressed it.
“Judgmental” is what Jesus warned us against in Matthew 7:1.
Judge not, lest you be judged.
He wasn’t telling us to forsake good judgments in our personal lives. Mindless is not a spiritual quality. Jesus was focused on being judgmental about others which is the precursor to disagreeable.
The same sentiment is expressed in Romans 14.
It’s possible to learn from the bad judgments of others but that usually makes us humble, relieved even, that the same thing didn’t happen to us. Judgmental, then, isn’t necessary. Consequences send the message loudly.
There is a big difference between the judgments we make about our personal lives, good or bad, and being judgmental about the judgments of others. Judgment is what we do ourselves. Judgmental is what others do to us.
Learning means I recognize that I did something stupid. That’s a good thing. It doesn’t work the other way around, though. It’s personally beneficial to recognize I did something stupid. It’s humiliating when everyone around me calls me stupid.
THINK!AboutIt
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