How to Avoid Judging Others Too Fast

This story’s moral is to look beyond the obvious

Humans are proud of their rationality. We are, however, inconsistently rational. We fail to admit we are selectively and sporadically rational.

We judge without knowing all the facts, which flies in the face of our proclaimed rationality and regret later. Suspending judgment to understand the whole picture is easily said than done.

Here is an interesting story about the perils of hasty judgments. Indian spiritual master Gaur Gopal Das narrated this story.

A teacher was teaching maths to six-year-old students. Arnav was one of her favourite students. Let’s pick up the dialogue between the teacher and Arnav.

Teacher: “If I give you 2 mangoes and 2 mangoes, how many will you have?”

Arnav: “5"

Teacher: “If I give you 1, 2 and 2 mangoes, how many will you have?”

Arnav: “5"

The teacher was confused. She, however, remembered Arnav liked strawberries. She decided to substitute strawberries for mangoes.

Teacher: “If I give you 2 strawberries and 2 strawberries, how many will you have?”

Arnav: “4"

The teacher was pleased. She decided, however, to confirm that Arnav had got his math right.

Teacher: “If I give you 2 mangoes and 2 mangoes, How many will you have?”

Arnav: “5"

The teacher was annoyed. She decided to corner Arnav.

Teacher: “How are 2 strawberries and 2 strawberries 4 and 2 mangoes and 2 mangoes 5?”

Arnav: “Because I have one mango in my bag, mam.”

Technical correctness versus practical correctness

Both the teacher and Arnav were right. The teacher was technically right, and Arnav was practically right.

Conflicts are rife in our personal and professional relationships. The communication gap is one of the reasons why we fail to understand each other.

We are self-righteous in defending our side of the story. We are not only wilfully ignorant of the other person’s story, but we also refuse to listen to their explanations.

What is apparent is not what is true. There is more to the story than meets the eye.

Technical correctness is superficial; practical correctness is multi-layered. If your spouse does not seem to love you, look beyond the obvious. Technically she seems indifferent. But practically, she might have stopped expressing her feelings as she used to before.

If your child stops talking to you, don’t judge her too fast as insolent or indifferent. Practically, she is justified in withdrawing into a shell because she has been facing bullying in her school. Practically, she is not sure about your affection because you have not spent quality time with her.

Appearances are always deceptive. What we look at is what we see.

Final thoughts

What we think about others goes through the prism of our beliefs and assumptions. This filtering distorts our perceptions about others and causes needless misunderstanding. There is always more than what meets the eye. What is apparent is only the tip of the iceberg. Much of the reality is submerged beneath the facade of appearance.

Knowing the difference between technical correctness and practical correctness will help us suspend judgment and make us look beyond the obvious to interpret situations and behaviours through a broader lens of multi-layered reality.

There is a huge gap between the stories we tell ourselves about others and the stories they don’t reveal to us. We don’t know what people are going through in their lives.

Judge in haste and repent at leisure.

Thanks for reading.