The Judges

How many times we do something just because people around us or just because of our ancestor doing it?

In our mind, when we think upon our action in our conscious mind, not with the reactive one, how many times we put culture that seemed to be okay or cool or even trivial into consideration to do things?

And we say that “it’s cool to do it because so many people from many years ago doing it” or “it’s acceptable in the society, so we’re doing it”…

But really? Are you sure to do what you do just because of those reasons, weighting your consideration based on the majority of the society or someone you barely know?

But is it even important to think about it?

You answer it yourself.

I won’t preach to you about what we should consider when we want to act. But I will preach to my self through this writing. I will calm my agony caused by my very own mistakes through this. I will release my loud thoughts about what I think at the moment about my past failures, just as a reminder for next time I read this again if there’s another opportunity. (while deep down I also wonder how my view would change in the future).

Enough with the chit chat, let me straightforwardly explain what I’m about to write. I won’t talk about “forgive your self and move one, end of the story” — Story, but I will focus on “do it better next time and how should I do it” — Story.

Do you know what is the worst thing that can happen out of our mistake? It can make you feel worse and cannot forgive your self, which is you keep dangling to the past mistakes. I realize that to move on and keep growing, it won’t be as simple as “hey feeling, don’t feel it!” It won’t do any good for you because it’s not that damn easy to do.

First, we have to think about what our values are. Thinking about it will be the foundation that can help us know who we are and that we understand that we are different from anyone’s judgement. By knowing that, we can also focus on honing that values in our everyday life.

Second, we have to know who are the judges of our acts. Who sees us transparently by knowing who we are, our intentions and acts at that time? The answer will likely be no one. We might do wrong even when we have good intention. It’s silly but that’s just us as a human being.

Third, the most important thing is we know and admit our mistakes, at least for ourselves. It’s better if we can ask for forgiveness, but if it’s too severe, sometimes it’s better not to ask it, and just do it better next time which is the real effort to do. Action speaks louder than words.

These might be not working for everyone, but so far, these things have helped me focus on doing what’s best rather than not doing anything and feeling low or sorry.

I hope anyone’s judgement will never relevant for us, especially for something we did that was wrong and bad. Their judgement will never matter to make us feel hopeless and small. It only matter up to the point to correct our faults that it won’t overly criticize or even manipulate us. So, their words won’t stop us to keep moving forward, growing, developing, and finding ourself in every chance — or every second of our breath.