Judging or being judged

Author Name: Dr. Aditi Mathur

I overheard my son talking to his friends that day, he was discussing about his teachers. Ah, he was not discussing, actually he was judging his teachers. They were carefully evaluating their teaching style, language being used, dresses being worn and even the hairstyle and choice of shoes was examined with deep critical remarks.

I felt strange that boys half the age of the teacher are finding themselves competent to judge and pass remarks about a person who has spent so many years teaching the subject and topic.

Some questions loomed large in my head:

Are we as a society becoming too judgemental after getting too many platforms to air our views to the world around.

Are we use our communication skills majority times to either justify ourselves or judge others.

Are we being over obsessesed by the definition of being perfect creations and developing perfect creations around us

The answer lies in the whole philosophy of our upbringing, we are being brought up in the environment where we are groomed for a certain behaviour patterns which are duly approved by the people around us and have felt under the scanned eyes of our elders who passed their judgements about us for every act we performed and made us realise that as we grow up we get the legitimate power to pass remarks and correct others behaviour.

Fear of non acceptance, rejection and being laughed out has ingrained deep in our psyche and we keep living our lives by rediculing others which somehow provides a sense of self acceptance as being better than others and we feel secured and elated.

Create As You Recreate

Author Name: Dr. Aditi Mathur

One fine day just out of curiosity I happened to ask my recently turned to be a teenage boy, “What do you wish to be”. This was a question I always wanted to ask but my overly read wisdom prohibited me to push my son towards a goal and I wish to be a parent who wants to let their kids take their life’s decision themselves. But to my utter surprise, I saw a beautiful smile on the face of my son, as if he was so eagerly waiting for me to ask this from him. But his smile faded in few seconds and he just shrugged off by saying, “I don’t know”.

I pushed him a bit but he further replied, “You tell me the options to choose from”. I said there are many options, you decide what will you like to do all your life, in fact I got worried the moment I left it open for him, as he may easily reply to just rest and relax all through the life, but even if he wished that he merely said again, “I don’t know”.

I tried to recollect my own observations regarding him as a child and I realised that he is amazingly patient, obedient and responsible (all traits are unlike his generation).

Do these qualify for a career option? What else do we need to make our lives better? Are we merely looking for skilled people or do we need people with the right attitude?