Who’s someone you never seem to get along with — that person you try really hard to like? Well, it’s not that you don’t like them, but more that you don’t like what they create in you.
Nine times out of ten, what makes us dislike (judge) some people is the fact that they don’t live according to our worldview. The opposite is also true for those we like (or think we do); we like them because they live according to our worldview.
That’s why the subject of love is so contradictory. That’s why we hate and ‘love’ at the same time. It’s why we attract and repel. We’re conflicted. This is not supposed to make us feel bad about ourselves, but to face the facts, and learn as much as we can from them.
If our likes and dislikes are based on a worldview that changes over time — it becomes obvious that we’ll keep switching friends or romantic partners — or simply stay with them because we don’t change much ourselves.
As we grow up, most of the people around us don’t understand the impact of how they treat us, what they tell us, what they repeat to those absorbing ears of ours. Children take in a lot more volume from their environment than adults do. They have to learn how to take care of themselves after all.
Eventually, all the things we hear and experience are registered— which together create a worldview, a filter we use to interpret and understand reality. And we hold very tightly to this worldview. Because it feels safe, it’s everything we know after all.
The rest of our life is then spent living according to this specific worldview. We fight with those who don’t agree with us. We group with those who do. And from this distorted perspective, we call some people our ‘enemies’, and others, our friends.
Believe it or not, this is how most people live today. And it’s not because it’s the right way to live, but because this is what we’ve learned. It’s the standard we’ve accepted because it’s always easier to just follow whatever everyone else is doing.
But, did it make our lives better, healthier, happier, more fulfilling? Did it bring us closer to one another? What’s happening in the world right now will tell us.
Ultimately, we have to redirect our need for safety to healthier horizons. There is no safety in stagnation. Life is movement, everything is constantly growing and expanding. We can’t live in harmony with life by remaining stuck in our worldviews. We’re meant to move, to evolve, just like life does because we’re part of life too.
This doesn’t mean “go ahead and accept whatever you come across”. It just means to be more open, and receptive about what life is trying really hard to tell you. It means releasing the craving for safety and realizing that you may have been holding to what would eventually end you.
There’s no need to go crazy about any of this. Simply give it a few minutes, and try to understand what’s really going on within you. This will be enough for now.
Pain is always difficult to deal with. If left unchecked, we cope with pain through denial. On the surface, it may feel like the problem has been solved but somewhere, it’s still there. We’ve learned to manage it through judgment.
Judgment is how we deal with our sense of inadequacy. Not that we’re inadequate, but that we judge ourselves as being inadequate. And to avoid facing this feeling of inadequacy — we hold tightly to our position of righteousness. Because if we’re not ‘right’ after all, it will mean that we’re inadequate — and we don’t want to feel that way.
Judging others makes us feel better about ourselves, even if this constant game of comparison is exhausting us to our souls.
The more judgmental we are, the more unrealistic expectations we develop. This only gets us deeper, and deeper into the rabbit hole. And our lives become as filled with conflicts, within and without, as they are today.
We all crave ‘love’. Love feeds us. It supports us. But we can’t love and be loved as long as we look at people through the lenses of our judgement. People are who they are, everyone is as confused as we are because we’re all learning along the way.
To see this fact drops all judgement, and then love naturally arises. We become compassionate. And we learn to give that compassion. Which others feel and reciprocate.
Whatever it is that you want, give it first.
I’d like to give a giant shoutout to Norlisa Alias who is one of the most authentic writers I’ve had the honor to meet on Medium. Her article “I Miss Your Writing Because I Felt Your Presence From It” is very personal to her and yet, it touches the heart of all readers.
