Judgey

I've noticed a few peaks of judgement in my life so far. One was in middle school, where the girls are mean, the boys are short, and everyone has some sort of braces contraption in their mouth or new glasses. The next peak was senior year of high school. As my class prepared to make the leap from our small town lives to college, people were judged based on their college choices (or lack thereof). The third judgemental peak has occured in the year since graduating college, where the question "so.. what do you do?" seems to start off every first conversation. I finally feel like this judgement is simmering down as I enter my second year as a post grad. Maybe the fourth  peak will be when everyone starts to have babies and get married? Who knows..

I can't say that I have never looked at a Facebook profile or heard some gossip about a high school acquaintance and thought about how my life is so much more put together then theirs. I'm sure people out there have done the same to me. Since I feel completely rotten when I do judge others, I've been trying to instead think with an open mind about people who are living lifestyles that are different from my own.

For example, a few of my good friends have moved back the Hudson Valley (where I grew up) after going away to school. When I graduated college, moving home was the last thing I wanted to do and I couldn't imagine why anyone my age would choose to live there. But I've come to realize that there are family reasons, boyfriend reasons, school reasons, job reasons.. there are countless reasons why these people have chosen to move back to their hometown, and the ones I know seem very happy.

Another type of judgement I've noticed in the post grad world stems from job choice. I am much less judgemental about jobs for some reason... probably because my job is not glamorous and mostly serves to pay the bills. I can't tell you how many times I've overheard grad students throwing digs at post grads who aren't following their passions or are stuck working retail jobs. I've seen those that were lucky enough to land their high profile dream job look down on those who haven't yet, instead of embracing how luck and timing have worked in their favor.

I think we could get a lot more out of our lives by trying to minimize our judgements as post grads. Like Shikole posted a few days ago, this is the time of our lives to set our own goals. While we are the only ones who can determine our own happiness, I think we can also work on appreciating each other's goals while we're at it.