I know. I shouldn’t’ judge. At least that’s what I am told.
I’m not really sure why judging is bad. I think the general feeling is that by abstaining from judging others, you promote kindness, compassion, and cultural sensitivity.
You also don’t arbitrarily place your lifestyle choices ahead of others.
But judging isn’t always bad.
Judging the men in a patriarchal society that doesn’t allow women to vote or drive cars and beheads them for doing so seems perfectly acceptable to me.
They suck. Right?
Judging a parent who is smoking in their car while their baby is strapped into the car seat in the backseat also seems acceptable to me.
These parents suck, too? Right?
Still, some judgments are probably more appropriate and productive than others. So when I saw the man’s cellphone holster, affixed to his belt like a modern day gunslinger (except not nearly as cool), I immediately thought poorly of him.
I knew that casting such aspersions was not right.
I recently adopted a policy of never making negative comments (or even having negative thoughts) about people based upon physical appearance. If Bermuda shorts in a blizzard makes you happy, who am I to think otherwise?
It’s been four months since I adopted the policy, and I have yet to make a negative comment about physical appearance aloud and have substantially curbed my negative thoughts as well.
It’s actually not hard. Once you tell yourself that everyone’s physical appearance is off limits, it’s only when you encounter an extreme example of physical appearance that those negative thoughts appear.
Half-naked teenagers. A woman struggling to walk through the parking lot in her three-inch heels. A man wearing a shirt that doesn’t entirely cover his gut. A boy wearing a shirt emblazoned with profanity. Women wearing large amounts of makeup.
I haven’t been completely successful in avoiding negative thoughts about physical appearance, but I’m working on it.
The same should apply to cell phone holsters. Right?
Then the man with the cell phone holster followed me into the restroom. He sidled up to the adjacent urinal. That’s when I noticed that he was holding a Styrofoam coffee cup in one hand as he worked the belt and button on his pants with the other. A moment later, he began drinking his coffee as he conducted his business. Slurping it, in fact, as if needing to maintain some sort of fluid equilibrium.
Liquid out. Liquid in.
The grossest thing that I ever saw was a man standing at a urinal, conducting his business while eating a hot dog, but this came close.
Then the man flushed the urinal, tossed his now-empty cup in the trash, and walked out of the restroom without washing his hands.
Nope. I was right to judge. The man was stupid and disgusting.
The cell phone holster was merely the tip of the iceberg.
