Being judgemental is the reason why you’re still alive.
It’s prevented you from doing things like walking in a dangerous neighbourhood at night, talking to shady people who might kill you, eating dirty food, and so on. Being judgemental is useful and without judgement, you’d have no understanding of how to navigate the world.
In fact, when people tell you to “stop being judgemental,”, they’re trying to get your guard down so they can exploit you or take advantage of you. You will also hear a lot of “don’t judge me” from irresponsible people living hedonistic lifestyles.
That said, if you don’t control yourself, you’ll find yourself judging everyone and everything (including yourself) and instead of learning more and having no experiences, you’ll stop growing.
Why you should be less judgemental?
When you are too judgemental, you get stuck in your own head instead of getting into other people’s heads.
This prevents you from coming across new worldviews and from gaining a better understanding of the world. It prevents you from learning from others.
Too much judgement prevents you from building a network
For example, take a wine aunt. A wine aunt is a 30+ year old woman with a successful career who can’t find a “good man” because despite making good money, she’s too old to be desired by successful men.
She wants a high value man because she thinks she’s high value, but high value men think she’s an old hag and want younger women. Ergo, she’s single, drinks wine, and has a few pets.
It’s very easy to start laughing at her. What an idiot – 30 and single and thinks she’s high value enough to get a successful man. LMAO.
Yes, you must understand the situation she is in – that is knowledge. You must know that no matter how desperate you are, you must not commit to her because she’s past her fertility – this is good judgement.
But excessive judgement to the point that you won’t even speak with her is folly. You miss out on the opportunity to dip into her network and contacts that she spent a decade developing – and you get to learn nothing about how someone like her views the world.
Likewise, judging people for being things like too old, too black, too poor, or for being a particular ethnicity, religion, caste etc. – it only prevents you from building a network.
Remember, you’re not going to marry these people. You’re not going to hang out with them constantly. You can be more accepting of their faults without it splashing on you. Too much judgement is preventing you from getting ahead in life.
You don’t need to copy things that are negative about people. Just because someone drinks a lot does not mean you start drinking. You can still be friends with them if they serve your interests and if knowing them is beneficial to you in other ways. You must take what is useful from everyone.
What I learned from a homeless man
I was recently speaking with a guy who sleeps on the street. If I was too judgemental, I would never speak with him. But he smiled at me and I asked him how he ended up in his situation.
He told me he sells vegetables and that the vegetable market opens up at 4 am. His house is in a neighboring village, which is a few hours away, and he can’t get to the city from his village at 4 am.
So for 6 days a week, he sleeps on the street and trades vegetables. Then every one day of the week, he takes the train to meet his wife and children. Monday – because the vegetable market is closed on Tuesday.
A lot of people live this life. We eat the vegetables but we don’t know how and where they come from and who brings them to us.
I would never have learned this if I considered myself too high and mighty to speak to an (apparently) homeless person.
You learn a lot if you keep your judgement aside
I’ve had other conversations with “poor people” that society looks down upon and learned a lot of random things I did not know – like how the guy selling food on trains makes his extra income by overcharging people for dinner. He charges people ₹120 instead of the government mandated ₹80 but only declares sales worth ₹80 to the government. It works because no one asks for the invoice.
Girls will tell you how many men she’s slept with if you show them that you’re not judgemental. Sure, it’s immoral of her to be promiscuous and you’re better off not giving her commitment, but if you’re too judgemental, you’ll never know the truth.
People have a hard time keeping secrets, but no one wants to be judged for their actions. If you can control your judgement (at least not make it apparent), people will tell you all sorts of things you would not otherwise learn.
Even if you are not a generally accepting person (there are many things I am not accepting of), it is in your interest to not become so judgemental of anything that it prevents you from getting the benefits of it.
Like Chanakya said: If there are traces of nectar in poison, it should be taken from it. If your enemies have some good qualities, you should take them.
Always take what is useful and don’t let your ego get in your way.
How to be less judgemental?
You need to get more life experience. You need to know how people got where they are in life.
This means you need to travel more, meet and talk to more people, read more books, and get more and varied experiences in your life.
If you take our wine aunt from before – yes, you can laugh at her for basically ruining her life. But laughing is what you do when you don’t understand the gravity of her situation and how she got there – it is inexperience.
If you truly think about it – you will ask yourself: how did she get here? What got her to where she ended up as a 30 year old unmarried woman?
You’ll realize that ever since she was a kid, modern society told her that men are evil creatures who exploit women and that the only way for her life to have meaning is to get higher education and work a corporate career.
This is what she saw glorified on TV and heard from authority figures in her life.
Society told her from a young age that women who look after the house and have children are the equivalent of maid servants.
Of course, then, she spent her time until 22 studying and of course she spent the next few years working hard to build a career. She was told she needed the career to prevent being exploited by men. She had a few relationships, things didn’t work out, and now she’s 30 and single.
When you understand how she got where she is – you will realize that this is not an evil person, but a victim of the degenerate times we live in.
And now she’s unlikely to bear children in her life, unlikely to find a decent husband, and unlikely to live a life better than her grandmother. She’s a victim who’s in a grave situation.
When you understand this, you will be far more sympathetic and have a much easier time connecting with her.
This applies to everyone. Sure, there are people who are truly worth judging (like the idiots who who tell you they don’t have time to work out as they sip beer in a bar) – but when you understand how people ended up where they are, you are more understanding of their situation and far less judgemental.
The less life experience you have, the quicker you will be to offend and the faster you will judge people for their lives.
You have idiots in college today who get offended over little things and call everyone something-ist because they have no life experience and they live in a bubble.
There is no substitute for life experience.
How to get more life experience fast?
This is the hard part and it takes some time. You basically need more varied experiences and need to meet and talk to all kinds of people (yes, this includes dead people – read some autobiographies).
1) Travel more – it gets you out of your culture and lets you contrast your way of life with others.
You do not know what idiosyncrasies your culture has unless you have something to contrast it with.
For example, when I was a kid, I used to think it is normal for movies to have lots of songs and choreographed dances. But this was only because I had only seen bollywood movies. When I saw some hollywood, I realized that the dances are unique to bollywood.
There was no way I’d have realized this if I didn’t have any exposure to foreign content.
2) Talk to all kinds of people – rich people, old people, poor people, young people, people without children, activists, religious people, taxicab drivers – talk to everyone, even the scum of the Earth like criminals and journalists.
Try to understand how they think, what they think, why they think what they think, what commonalities they have in their life experiences, and how they perceive the world. Ask them about their experiences and shut the fuck up and listen.
If you want to be successful in any meaningful endeavor, you need to understand human nature and the human situation. There is no substitute for this. Even if you are in a technical profession, you still have to deal with people.
3) Get more varied experiences – Get into relationships with women. Do a road trip and drive 6 hours. Climb a mountain. Go through a forest. Try out a new cuisine. Start a business. Send out some cold emails. Play with some kids. Get out of your room.
Most people spend their life staring at TV, jacking off to porn, and working a job. Needless to say, they are morons with no understanding of the world which is why they behave like mindless NPCs.
4) Learn from other people’s experiences – Read more books, especially history books and autobiographies. Listen to more podcasts where people talk about the things they’ve learned from experience.
Just make sure that the information you’re consuming comes from people with experience, not some dumbass obese college blue-haired university idiot telling you how he thinks the world should be.
If you’re not currently reading anything, pick up something you like from the book recommendations page.
To learn history, one of the best podcasts I’ve found is called Hardcore History by Dan Carlin.
You should also check out The Unapologetic Truths Podcast that I host with my friend ArmaniTalks – accurately described by a commenter as “a random balls deep conversation”.
You will find that as you become more knowledgeable on human nature, the human experience, and the human situation – you’re able to navigate life better, connect with people more, give fewer fucks about irrelevant things, and become a much more open person.
Hope this helps.
Your man,
Harsh Strongman
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