Gabriel Mohr

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Entertainment: The Value and Why It’s A Double-Edged Sword

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Quick Facts

-Entertainment can be good for us when consumed in healthy doses.

-We can “entertain ourselves to death” if we watch shows/play games instead of doing what we know we should be doing. Balance is key here!

Intro

Entertainment is one of the most coveted things in America today – well, in most of the world today! Many of us can be found on our phones, watching our TVs, playing video games, going to theaters, doing entertaining things, etc, etc. 

Some have even ventured to say that we’re too entertained and that we should cut down a little on the phones. I’d say that entertainment is gaining more and more of a negative connotation as time goes on, and since this is happening I’ll make sure we understand the value of entertainment and why it can be a double-edged sword. 

Let’s do it to it!

What Is Entertainment?

Entertainment has taken various forms over the years but it’s always had one common goal – to make people laugh and feel good. Have you ever been watching a YouTube video and you just, feel amazing? Maybe there’s some awesome teamwork going on or someone just did an amazing backflip. If you ever laugh or feel good while in the presence of an entertainer you know they’re doing their job correctly!

There is some biology behind this as well – dopamine and serotonin are two “feel good” chemicals that are produced inside of our body. When we watch a video and start to feel good, it’s likely that we’re experiencing an increase of dopamine and/or serotonin, and it’s even more likely that the entertainer knows the psychology behind releasing these chemicals in their audience.

Making people think they’re at ease, that they’re loved, that they’re desired, that they deserve to laugh is part of the “job description,” if you will. Beliefs are thought patterns that are (usually) emotionally charged, so making an effort to make people laugh will get (at least some of) them to think, “wow he’s making an effort just for me! He’s so funny!” That’s when their body secretes those ever-so-pleasant chemicals we know and love making them feel comfortable, relaxed, entertained.

Sometimes things are entertaining without any effort on the other party’s part – I personally find other people’s road rage to be entertaining, for example. Or if a teacher is teaching a subject and their students feel entertained in the process (usually through enthusiasm). Maybe you’ve wondered, “why is this guy so entertaining?” Well now you know, it’s a combination of trust and a good time! 

The Greatness of Entertainment/Entertainers

Entertainment has one solid thing about it – it lifts people out of the drudgery of everyday life and temporarily places them in a kind of paradise. An expert entertainer knows this and consciously performs their act to create these positive feelings, usually by knowing their audience and acting accordingly. 

I feel like we take these people for granted sometimes, especially with how many of them are available through social media. I want to stress that proper entertainers are rare and that there are a lot of people who can entertain but aren’t true entertainers. These kinds of people make up 99% of the “entertainment side of the moon.”

The people who seem to benefit from this the most are people who are of the mind. The thinkers, the intelligent ones. Thinking can be fun and useful but a thinker doesn’t have a very stimulating life in general, so watching videos or going out to see a play is a great idea for those who are in their head all day long, it’s a great way to reward themselves.

Entertainment has been around since the beginning of our species and it won’t go away until we cease to exist! A true entertainer is a very valuable person and even being able to make people feel good will get you very far in life, which segways into my next headline.

It’s Not Fundamentally Bad

The negative connotation surrounding entertainment is mostly because of the addictive quality of dopamine. It’s funny how you can become addicted to endorphins that are produced by your own body, but it’s true! Dopamine addiction is a huge reason why porn is so addictive, primal parts of your brain are secreting large amounts of it whenever you switch pornstars because, in your mind, you’re finding new sexual partners to mate with. I encourage you to watch the video series on The Coolidge Effect, it’s really quite fascinating.

Discipline and balance are helpful when it comes to entertainment because, if you over-entertain yourself, you’ll find it difficult to do things that aren’t entertaining – such as work! If you’re used to 5+ hours of entertainment per day it’ll be all you’re thinking about while you’re at work, whereas if you’re only used to 1 or 2 hours you’ll be much less addicted and be able to go for the things you want with less struggle.

Entertainment isn’t fundamentally bad, but over-entertaining yourself is. 

The Potential To Over-Entertain Yourself

It happens all the time. I see it everywhere whether it be YouTube, Dish, Netflix, video games… It seems like most of us are addicted to entertainment in one form or another, and it’s fairly alarming to someone like me. It’s easy to sit on the couch and do nothing all day while your brain is busy producing dopamine, but I’m of the opinion that this should be a treat, not a lifestyle! 

Getting out of dopamine addiction is hard but very possible, I recommend exercising (for serotonin) and achieving goals that you set for yourself (self-esteem).

Being An Entertainer

Ironically enough, being an entertainer can be the opposite of being entertained – good entertainment often takes effort, talent, and skill, most of the work is behind the scenes whereas only a small portion of it feels good for the entertainer as well.

I like to think about it like this – if you play video games and post them on YouTube you want them to be entertaining for your audience to watch. So nowadays you should have a funny personality, make funny comments and jokes throughout the session. When the video’s done you should probably edit it so that it appears in funny ways. Then you post it on YouTube and figure out where to place advertisements along with the video.

Or, if you’re a band and you want to play a concert you have to set the stage up. If you’re like Rammstein and you want to do crazy stuff a lot of effort goes into making sure everything will go right and that nothing will go wrong. Not to mention the actual performance itself… And the takedown afterward. 

Being an entertainer can be a lot of work and even boring at times, depending on your profession! That’s why I want to put this disclaimer here so that you don’t make the same mistake I did – I figured “oh, being entertained is so much fun! Being an entertainer will be even more fun!” Maybe it’s that way for some people but I doubt it’s that way for many!

Finding Balance

A lot of thought should be put into how much entertainment we should give ourselves throughout the day because, if we don’t, it may very well take over our lives and always be at the forefront of our mind.

My thought is this – if you’re being entertained so much that you can’t do the things you know you should… It’s time for a change. If you’re trudging or half-assing your stuff because you’d rather be home watching Valley Girls S2E11 it’s time for a change.

However, if you’re being entertained and you have discipline, you’re getting your stuff done and you’re being mentally and emotionally healthy – go for it! 

Find your own balance in this area of life, know your goals, and stick to them so that you don’t fall into a trap that’s pretty difficult to climb out of!

Conclusion

Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it. I’m sure that I’ve helped sort this issue out and I hope you’ll share it around and be cool like that! I’ll see you in the next article!

Word Analysis Philosophy (WAP), What It Is, and How/Why It Works

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Quick Fact

-Word analysis philosophy is a technique I created to help with negative thought patterns! It works since we focus on the core words within each thought pattern and study them, thereby learning their true meaning and origin, thereby placing attention on them, thereby transcending them!

Intro

Perhaps I’m in a different position than most, but I often fall into negative thought patterns that can last for days, weeks, or months on end. These negative thought patterns are often unconscious (oh boy, how fun) and they almost always consist of words that have a negative connotation in society, such as “terrible,” “shameful,” “useless,” and the like; words that are meant to degrade my being and make sure I never get back up again.

In response to my own turmoil I’ve created a new branch of philosophy called ‘Word Analysis Philosophy.’ Its purpose is to take a particular word, break it into smaller pieces, find out exactly where it comes from, exactly what it means, how it could be said better, and what exactly the ‘it’ happens to be that I’m trying to explain.

For example, a word that’s bugging me at the moment is “useless.” I could let this word roam around in the back of my mind and leave it unchecked, but that would lead to a lot of suffering since me telling myself “I’m useless” is a bad thing, right? Maybe, but I’m not entirely convinced that this is the truth. Let’s take this word, “useless,” and analyze it a little further instead of simply taking it at face value.

The Process

If I break the word into smaller bits and pieces I find that it’s made up of two words; “use” and “less.” Just breaking the word apart sends a different message than “useless;” instead of suffering to no end I now receive the message that I should “use less” of my computer/phone since I’m on them all of the time for work and play.

Now I take the two words “use” and “less” and find their origin. After all, the cultural context they were created for at the time is everything, and if a word is created in a different context than what we’re experiencing today then it could have a completely different meaning than what we think of it to be in the present day.

A quick search from www.etymoline.com gave me this: ” use (n), c. 1200, “act of employing,” from Anglo-French and Old French us “custom, practice, usage,” from Latin usus “use, custom, practice, employment, skill, habit,” from past participle stem of uti “make use of, profit by, take advantage of.”

Also, “use (v), c. 1200, “employ for a purpose,” from Old French user “employ, make use of, practice, frequent,” from Vulgar Latin *usare “use,” frequentative form of past participle stem of Latin uti “make use of, profit by, take advantage of, enjoy, apply, consume,” in Old Latin oeti “use, employ, exercise, perform,” of uncertain origin.

This Latin root, “uti,” certainly has its place in the English language; utilize, utensil, inutile, usury, and use all come from this stem “uti.” So immediately we think of a tool, a device, something we take advantage of, etc, etc.

Looking up the word “less” I see two different definitions, the first being “Old English læs (adv.) “less, lest;” læssa (adj.) “less, smaller, fewer” (Northumbrian leassa), from Proto-Germanic *laisizan (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian les “less;” Middle Dutch lise “soft, gentle,” German leise “soft”), from PIE root *leis- (2) “small” (source also of Lithuanian liesas “thin”) + comparative suffix,” which is a complete mouthful for someone who is not etymologically inclined. However, the second definition made a little more sense to me;

-less, word-forming element meaning “lacking, cannot be, does not,” from Old English -leas, from leas “free (from), devoid (of), false, feigned,” from Proto-Germanic *lausaz (cognates: Dutch -loos, German -los “-less,” Old Norse lauss “loose, free, vacant, dissolute,” Middle Dutch los, German los “loose, free,” Gothic laus “empty, vain”), from PIE root *leu- “to loosen, divide, cut apart.”

If we take the first part of this definition (modern English “-less”) then we get a word that spells “useless” which generally means “lacking utility,” “cannot be taken advantage of.” If we move to the Old English root -leas then we can spell the word “useleas” (or dare I be so bold to spell it “uselease”) which means means  “devoid of advantage,” “false utility,” or even “free of use.” Moving on to the third part of this definition (the Old Norse root -lauss) we get the word “uselauss” which means “vacant utility,” “dissolute advantage,” or even “loose utility or “loosely advantageous.”

The older the root, the less sense it makes when we combine it with modern English, but right away we can see a few choices when we take another look at this word; we can choose to see the word “useless” as meaning “free from use, unable to be used,” as “lacking utility, devoid of advantage,” or even as “use less” (as in using something less than usual).

If you’re like me and this word runs through your head every now and again the first definition will most likely be the most freeing out of the three since we usually assume the second definition by default. The third way to see this word is useful if we’re doing something more than we should be. 

Now that we have the definitions out of the way we can get a little more philosophical on the matter by asking questions such as, “What exactly is the thing that is useless?” “What is the opposite of ‘using’ something?” “Why do I feel bad when this word pops up again? What does it mean for me?” The longer we ask questions about a word (or a sentence or a phrase) the sillier it becomes. If I answer the first question by saying, “Well, me! I’m useless,” then I’m forced to ask the question, “Which definition do you mean?” Then I might say, “The second definition. I am lacking utility; I am devoid of advantage; I am completely and utterly useless to society in every possible way.”

What I have done there is made the unconscious thought pattern completely conscious by forcing myself to give a straight definition as to what it is I mean exactly.

Sometimes just attending to a subconscious thought pattern is enough and you’ll start to feel much better. In this case, though, my initial assumption hasn’t left; it appears to be very, very grounded in reality.

From here I could ask a few different questions; “Is this assumption grounded or ungrounded? If so, why?” “What skillsets should I develop in order to change this reality, and why exactly?” “Why is this a core assumption that’s been in the background for so long?” “Am I doing something I shouldn’t be doing, or not doing something I should be doing?” 

I won’t type my follow-throughs for the sake of time, but in the end, it became quite clear that some of my fear, anxiety, sadness, and guilt stem from a core assumption of the feeling named shame if I conclude that I’m not being useful enough to the people around me. Of course, now I should examine the word “shame,” and I probably will after this post.

Conclusion

WAP is meant to help over-thinkers like myself calm their minds with a bit of effort and a bit of brutal honesty by accepting the thoughts as they are.

It’s not necessarily a step-by-step process because the answers will be different for you and me than they will be for everyone else. But looking into a word (or a sentence or phrase) for long enough will reveal its silliness to you, and it may reveal another secret that cannot be said… I’ll leave that one for you to figure out!

Self-Improvement and Realization – Why One Works and the Other Doesn’t

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Quick Facts

-Self-improvement is where we improve our skills, and self-realization is realizing who we already are.

-Self-realization is what happens when we look into our inner world and realize ourselves!

-SR is often greater than self-improvement since self-improvement ultimately leads to the opportunity to realize ourselves.

-Identifying with ‘the improver’ almost always makes it more difficult to improve ourselves to the furthest extent we’re capable of!

-When we realize who we truly are, we almost always see how beautiful we truly are…

Intro

We see the call for self-improvement everywhere – schools, colleges, gyms, workplaces, training programs, various kinds of sports, and of course the infamous “self-improvement” communities that are scattered around if you look hard enough.

The game of self-improvement has become the game to play when I speak for American society, and if you show no interest in the game then finding people you can befriend will be difficult since everybody is busy “improving” themselves in one way or another.

It’s also come to my attention that some of my writings come dangerously close to saying something to the extent of, “You should improve yourself in order to feel better.” This is not the intention of my writings; my writings exist to help you find the silence in your life, whether that means a silent mind, a change of environment, wisdom to help you handle your chatty friends and family, etc. 

Today I’d like to make a case against self-improvement and for self-realization, since I have observed “realized” people and “self-improvement” people and have come to the conclusion that realized people generally have better lives than self-improvement people (please note that the word “better” implies that self-improvement must take place in order for an individual to become realized. This is not the case and I simply use it for lack of terminology).

I’ll articulate the two main problems with self-improvement and then I’ll explain what I mean when I say that somebody should “realize” themselves. Grab your popcorn because this one’s going to be fun!

The Improver

The idea of improving yourself is simple; you start out at point A and you want to get to point B. However, since you don’t have the presence of mind, physical fitness, or confidence to do such a thing you need to improve yourself in order to do so, and this can be done through schooling, studying through other means, working out, having somebody train you, going to yoga class, or even meditation.

Of course, the end result of this improvement is a feeling of competence, confidence, and worthiness in the society in which you live (which you can have right now if you choose to, but more on that below). However, there’s one small problem with this; if you’re improving yourself then who is improving the improver? And of course who is improving the improver of the improver?

This gets pretty trippy if you’re the one improving yourself because eventually, you have to ask, “Which part of me is improving and which part of me is the improver? And which part of me is responsible for improving the improver, and which part of me is responsible for improving the improver of the improver?!” 

We can already see that self-improvement cannot work because every improver needs improving, and who is going to improve the final improver? We can argue that a circle of people can manage to improve each-other as a group, and while that is possible there is still one more problem…

Pain

To “improve yourself” you must go through the “struggle” or the “tunnel” or whatever one might call it so that he or she can be more steady and secure in the future. This means going through a lot of pain (physically, psychologically, or both) in order to train your body, go to school, work those long hours, or whatever it is you do. 

This is a tragic model of life because it simply doesn’t work like this. Pain leads to more pain and pleasure leads to more pleasure. If you’re experiencing pain as a result of trying to improve yourself then it’s more than likely that you’ll end up in a place of responsibility that produces more of the feeling you want to feel! In other words, you want to feel the pain that you feel when you go through “self-improvement” then who’s to say that you don’t want it to go away when you’ve “fully improved,” if you even get to that point?

It should be noted that learning/doing something because you’re interested in it is not the same as learning/doing something because you think you “have to;” if you work out, study, etc because it’s interesting to you then more power to you. I am mainly speaking about those who do something because “it’s good for them;” this mindset points to an unspoken assumption that can be summed up in a sentence such as “I am no good as I am and I need to be better.” 

The Realization

This assumption, “I am no good as I am and I need to be better” is simply a thought, a feeling of shame, or both. When the self-improver realizes this he or she becomes liberated from the cycle and their emotional pain turns into a feeling of relief as if they had just dropped their backpack after a twenty-mile hike.

I make the case for self-realization because it is the actual antidote to self-improvement! If someone really thought it through they would realize that they never had to improve because they’ve always known what they’ve wanted to do all along, and it probably didn’t have anything to do with what they were doing to “improve” themselves at all.

How Do I Realize Myself?

It’s important to consciously shift your mindset from the “improver” to the “realizer” because otherwise, the heading above will sound like another tactic for self-improvement. However, realizing your self is simple; pay attention to your thoughts, your feelings, and your environment around you. Pay attention to the one who pays attention to your thoughts, and then pay attention to that one. This is meditation at its core; it is not a tool but a state of understanding yourself and the world around you.

Doing this is frighteningly simple, and when you realize that you can start manifesting your own feelings into your life (competence, confidence, worthiness, connection, love, bliss, you name it!) then people will start to heal simply by standing in your presence on their own path towards realizing the same thing. It’s truly wonderful.

The Urgency

I urgently encourage you to shift your mindset from the “improver” to the “realizer” as quickly as possible. We (Americans, at least) are in a society that is so greatly focused on self-improvement that they’re hurting themselves and everybody/everything else around them.

Instead of this, it’s very important to seek self-realization and to develop an understanding of the world inside of them and the world around them while consciously deciding to do away with self-improvement.

This is a vital change that must happen soon if we’re going to thrive as a species, and it starts with you, the reader. Or readers. It’s possible that more than one person is reading this post on the same computer. I don’t know :).

Conclusion

Thank you so much for reading my article! I greatly appreciate you being here, and I’ll see you in the next one :).

What Is God (Or, Rather, What Isn’t)?

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Quick Facts

-Many people find God when they say neti neti (not this, not that), and when they discover that they, themselves, are God!

-Many people believe in God, even though they’ve never seen or experienced God!

The Answer

The popularity of religion is widely spread all over the world. To some, the truth lies within the bible, with others, the Quran, with some their god(s) lie within totems and idols, and some don’t believe in anything at all.

It’s important to note that God cannot be found by searching, even by searching within yourself. Meditation, yoga, insight, self-referencing – all of these practices can be enlightening to an extent, but if one (consciously or subconsciously) practices meditation then there is most likely an underlying assumption which looks something like, “I’m not good enough and I need improvement.”

If someone has this subconscious assumption then fully realizing, accepting, and changing this assumption will bring you closer to God than the practice itself.

If God cannot be found by searching, what is to be done? Nothing, of course.

However, this is easier said than done depending on your surrounding environment – if you’re reading this then you probably have a job, some friends and family, a couple of hobbies, etc etc.

If you realize that nothing is to be done, however, you would either become depressed and nihilistic or liberated and enlightened. However, neither of these realizations are permanent; they will, sooner or later, be replaced with the question, “Am I God?” which will bring forth an answer that will bring you closer to God.

Any thoughts separate yourself from God simply because any act of separation moves one further away from God. This includes subconscious thinking which makes up most of our thought process. If one finds meaning in finding and examining their subconscious thought processes they are finding their way to God through realizing how they have separated from all that is.

God cannot be fully justified by conception, and therefore cannot be fully worshiped. If someone worships anything (whether it be a physical object, a thought, a feeling, a conception, etc) they are worshiping an idol unless they have realized that everything is connected and part of a whole. Only then can we come as close to worshiping God as humanly possible.

However, God does not need worship – it is possible to find God and then forget it ever happened. If someone finds God and forgets it ever happened they must find God through another area of their life for one reason or another. If they take the path they traversed before they will find themselves in hell.

The purest of light, the most harmonious music, the greatest of thoughts, the most wondrous sight, the most meaningful visions, the most wonderful insights, the greatest realizations, and the most aligning experiences will bring you further away from God and instead bring you into something else that is.

That is to say, we may use the word “God” as a description for a certain reality, however, there are other experiences that we don’t label with the word “God” (or perhaps, “godly,” “heavenly,” “of the lord”) and these are simply other variations of what is.

This realization (that the word “God” simply points to a certain emotional, conceptual, physical, or spiritual reality) liberates the religious man from himself, and he discovers a hidden part of himself at the same time.

Conclusion

And so I say this with great pleasure; God, as it seems to most, cannot be found through hearing, seeing, touching, feeling, tasting, or sense. However, when you realize this your next realization is that you are capable of doing what you thought you needed God to do.

When this is fully realized a felt harmony begins to show itself, and the felt experience surrounding the word “God” becomes a separate experience altogether, one which can be accessed at any time, and something that the religious man does not “need” to experience anymore. Peace may now be felt, and life continues as it always has!

What Judgment Is, And How To Handle It

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Quick Facts

-Judgment is the process of gathering information and coming to a conclusion or decision, and usually, the end result is based on commonly accepted law and/or morality. 

-The fear of judgment goes back to our primal days – if we were negatively judged we were thrown out of the tribe, and back then, we couldn’t survive the harsh elements on our own.

-Some judgments are grounded, which means they are based on physical evidence that is obvious to others. Some judgments are ungrounded, which means they’re either false or of things that are subtle and/or the evidence is not obvious to others.

-Becoming a stellar judge yourself (not necessarily in the legal sense) is a great idea if you’d like to counteract the bad judges that are out there!

Intro

Today we’re going to dissect judgment and see it for what it really is! We’ll also be taking a look at the fear of judgment, since this is what plagues many of us today, and we’ll figure out how to resolve it! Enjoy the read!

The Beginning

Negative judgment (especially when it is subconsciously acted out) is one person (or a group of people) acknowledging another person (or a group of people) and rejecting them for one reason or another. This can be extremely hurtful for everybody involved, the judger and the judged alike, and it’s driven many people into isolation, anxious states of mind, and sometimes even suicide.

Positive judgment has some underlying problems as well; if we judge something in a positive manner that means we automatically (and often subconsciously) negatively judge its opposite. This is the same for negative judgment; if someone negatively judges something in a negative manner they automatically positively judge the opposite. With the duality exposed, we can begin to realize the truth about judgment, but it’s required to go far more in-depth than I have so far.

What Is Judgment, Exactly?

The first thing that’s important to note is that it used to have a major impact on the life of an individual when humanity was in a much earlier stage in its development. If an individual did something that was against the tribe’s well-being the tribe would judge him/her and forge a punishment for them based on whether or not they felt like they should. If an individual was exiled from their tribe they would eventually die since you needed your tribe in order to survive the harshness of the times. This fear of rejection (aka being negatively judged) seems to have carried over into the modern-day seeing as we take both happenings very seriously, more seriously than most other life events.

While the word “judgment” seems to point to a feeling that’s felt when we see the word “rejection,” and since “judgment” also doubles as an abstract concept that describes the process of one person or group of people accepting or denying another person or another group of people based on their requirements for acceptance, we already have the second thing to know about judgment; people accept or deny based on their own requirements for acceptance. You can go into an interview and absolutely crush it, but as long as the interviewer sees that you don’t meet their expectations (even if they’re hidden or unknown) you won’t get the job. This is the same with a mate, a friend, a business comrade, a family member, etc etc. 

The third thing to know about judgment is that it shouldn’t just be brushed aside. If someone rejects you or judges you in a passive or openly harsh manner that probably means there is something about you that’s negatively affecting everybody else around you. This may not be the case (we’ll talk about that in more detail below) but it’s always best to ask yourself if what they’re saying is true and to answer yourself honestly. If you find it difficult to answer yourself honestly then that may be (at least part of) the problem.

Grounded Judgment vs. Ungrounded Judgment

You may remember a previous post that discusses the differences between grounded and ungrounded anxiety/confidence. Judgment works the same way; the act of judgment itself can be either grounded or ungrounded and the feeling of rejection can also be grounded or ungrounded. Distinguishing between the two kinds of judgment is crucial if we’re going to learn how to deal with harsh judgment.

Let’s say that a couple is having a fight and one of them is sensing “defeat” coming around the corner. If the individual is immature they may throw out a random insult that has nothing to do with the subject they’re fighting about; “you know, my ex was better than you. Maybe I’ll go back to them.” This is a harsh blow to the face; Person A just made a general judgment on Person B about their entire being summed up in one single sentence. The fight would probably continue with something like that going unnoticed but this is ungrounded judgment at its finest. 

We can spot ungrounded judgment by placing any judgment we come across with this particular filter; the more a judgment is meant to serve the judger and not the judged the more of an ungrounded judgment it is. Obversely, the more a judgment is meant to serve the judged and not the judger the more grounded in reality the judgment is. 

This is where it gets tricky. Everybody is selfish and has selfish intentions (whether the intentions are realized or not), so one might be tempted to say that all judgments are ungrounded and that judgment itself is something to “awaken” from. It is important to note, however, that our long-ago ancestors were properly able to survive based on a series of judgments that distinguished poisonous from healthy, safe from dangerous, hot from cold, etc etc, and so I argue that grounded judgments in the modern day are just as important as they were when we were simply surviving as a species. Let’s take a look at this example below to see what I mean.

We have John, Linda, and Thomas, three fictional characters in a fictional scenario. John and Linda have been dating for just over a year when Linda starts noticing something strange about John; he’s becoming more aggressive, more paranoid, more controlling, and more uncaring as the relationship moves forward. She starts to become concerned with this so she goes into his room and tries to find out what’s wrong; maybe she’s expecting a prescribed medication, or maybe a booze bottle hiding in a drawer somewhere, but she didn’t expect him to be looming over the doorway when she turned around because she didn’t know that he was coming home from work early that day.

Starting to become frightened she hires a private investigator named Thomas to help her find out why John has been acting this way. Thomas looks into his life away from home and reports that John has started going to the stripper clubs in the musty part of their town. This includes sex (which he aptly pays for), drugs, (which are normally given to him for free), and lots of promises that he’ll get a lot more if he comes back next weekend. John confesses to these faults and now Linda has the capability to make a grounded judgment as to what should happen between them as a couple.

She begins by thinking that it’s over between her and John, but she suddenly remembers something about John’s past; the last time she went to visit his parents for the holidays, she noticed that his dad was an overbearing, overly strict alcoholic who could loosen up a little bit. When she asked John about it in private he said that his father was always like this and that he never gave his children any respect unless they brought him a beer.

Then she remembers the time when John broke down crying and admitted his feelings for another woman who was in his life at the time. He never went with her but the implication that Linda wasn’t enough for him stuck with her for a long time.

Finally, she remembers a time when she found a bag of cocaine in his drawer. When she brought the bag to his attention he admitted that he had been taking the drug two weeks before she found the bag and that he’ll stop using it immediately.

Each memory Linda has let her become more and more capable of a grounded judgment for the situation at hand. She decides that John obviously has a core issue with his self-worth based on what happened in the past; she decides that he’s in a lot of emotional pain and that he is somebody who needs to be helped, not hurt. Instead of a nasty breakup that has the potential to hurt John even more than she decides to break apart from John with the promise that she will help him in any possible way she can while he gets himself together as an individual.

While this may not be the best decision it certainly wasn’t the worst decision, and the reason for this is because she made it based on real-life events that happened between them while keeping John’s own well-being in mind instead of making a snap judgment that could have proven hurtful instead of helpful. 

How To Handle Judgment Properly

Now that we’re aware of the two types of judgment it’s important to note that no judgment is completely grounded and no judgment is completely ungrounded. Most judgments will be a mixture of the two, and it’s our job to take a judgment that has been thrown our way and decide if it’s more grounded than ungrounded or vice versa. In other words, learning how to handle judgment is the same as being a good judge as to whether or not the judgment was accurate or inaccurate and then taking action based on your decision. Since this is the case it’s vital to learn how to judge people/situations properly, we do this by being aware of the reality in which we live.

We don’t need to be aware of every single grain of sand on the entire planet in order to be a sound judge, but we do need to be aware of what’s happening in the situation at hand and be willing to consider the well-being of everyone involved if we’re going to be a grounded judge.

I’m certainly far from perfect in this area of life; I find myself making snap judgments and ungrounded accusations about the people around me throughout the day, and it’s something I’m in the process of changing. For those plagued by the judgment of their friends/family/acquaintances, however, it’s important to become a grounded judge and you can do this by asking the question, “Why do these people keep saying or doing the things they do? Don’t they know it’s hurting me and probably everyone else around us?”

When this question is followed through (which may require some proper investigation into your judger’s past depending on who they are) you will then have enough information and confidence to make a grounded judgment about the individual/group in question and you will have an easier time deciding if their judgment is grounded or ungrounded.

The more you are able to distinguish between grounded and ungrounded judgments (I.E., which judgments are hurtful and which judgments are helpful) the more your confidence grows. The more your confidence grows the more negative judgments tend to become “swallowed” by your confidence. The more negative judgment that’s “swallowed” by your confidence, the less you will be negatively affected by it. Then you’ll feel better about yourself in general and you’ll have an increased capacity to help others get to the same place as well.

Conclusion

Judgment can be harsh, and the solution probably wasn’t what you were expecting (I sure didn’t expect it to be like this), however it is a relatively simple solution to a pressing issue in American society. I hope this post helped you answer your question, have a great day!