Whether or not we are aware of it, judgment tends to be the kind of thing that happens anyway. Everyone has a standard of some sort by which they analyze something, and when we encounter something, it goes through our personalized formula that determines whether or not we approve of it or label it acceptable or appropriate.

I wish I could say I have never been judgmental towards something, but thinking about it now, I know that I have. Often it’s subconscious, and I automatically frown at something someone tells me or roll my eyes when I see someone do something. Thinking about it again, I also recognize that passing judgment on things is probably one of the most unproductive things one can do.

I like to be told when I do something dumb or make a poor decision. I depend on my family and friends to be honest with me and provide a reality check when it is necessary. But there is a difference between being honest with someone you care about and unnecessarily judging something someone does, particularly if it doesn’t affect you in any way.

Why should we care if someone dates a new person every week or gets straight C’s and D’s in school? It probably has nothing to do with us anyway, and even if it may sound like kind of a questionable thing to us, we never really know that person’s true situation. And anyway, we might as well take risks and do “questionable” things when we’re young rather than later when we actually are expected to behave like adults.

Let people make their own choices, whether it’s a mistake or not in your mind. It’s their life and not yours, and our jobs in life aren’t to judge what someone else does, but rather to be there if, in the end, they see they made a wrong decision and need you.

I think the best thing to do is to try to understand where someone might be coming from. And, if you can’t do that, accept that you can’t understand and move on before making a judgment. It is certainly okay to have an opinion on something and believe certain things are right and others aren’t as right. But make it more about you — make a given action something you think is wrong and something you would never do, but don’t generalize it to other people. Non-judgmental people are the best kind of people because they allow us to live our lives freely. They let us mess up, but help us learn from it — and are there to catch us when we fall.