Judgment is the fast food of self-care
When you have issues with your own image, your own thoughts or feelings, it's tempting to rely on judgment to assuage them. Judging strangers on the street or on the Internet, even judging acquaintances, friends or family, has an immediate and measurable effect. A quick boost of the self at the expense of others. At that moment, you are better than the other, and have the proof of it.
A lot of energy on social media is dedicated to this practice. Entire groups of people will jump to judgment of an individual based on a single image or snippet of text. As the virality of the original content, and the reactions to it, increases, a kind of feedback loop ensues:
- Everybody who participates feels a sense of belonging that accompanies the sense of righteousness
- The more people participate in the ritual, the more intense the feelings
Just because something feels good, it doesn't mean that it is. Fast food chains have spent countless time and money in perfecting the art of instant gratification in food form. No one will argue that eating fast food is healthy or desirable, but (discarding socio-economical factors that fall outside the scope of this note) we all choose to eat it, or rather succumb to it on occasion.
Self-worth should be nourished and grown from within, not without. If you pass judgment on others, you are not engaging in self-growth. If anything, I'd argue you are deliberately shifting the focus away from yourself, and in turn making it harder to do the deep, introspective work required to affect change on how you perceive yourself.
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