One of the biggest obstacles I have found to happiness in life is an attitude of judgment. It separates us from others, and fosters a general feeling of dissatisfaction with life.  More than 10 years ago, I began a personal quest to eliminate an overdeveloped attitude of judgment from my life. I started with my sister, whom I discovered had felt criticized by me for most of our lives. I apologized for judging her, and we decided together to banish judgment from our lives for a year! We talked nearly everyday, and every time one or the other of us began to judge a person or a circumstance, we challenged ourselves to pull back the judgment and try to not only accept the thing we were tempted to judge, but also understand it, and even have sympathy for it.

This became a pivotal discipline for us, and it changed our lives, and our relationship with each other. True intimacy in a relationship is only possible when there is no judgment. And after a solid year of active practice, we found that our perception of life was more positive, and surprisingly, we didn't feel nearly so affected when others judged us. It was as though our unwillingness to participate in judgment made us  immune to the judgment of others. I now notice that when I begin to feel judged by someone else, it is a flag for me to take stock of anything I am currently judging. I should note that I'm not talking about discernment, which is a form of judgment that offers insight. I'm strictly referring to the negative aspects of judgment that are only interested in comparing how I am somehow superior to this or that. While I do not claim to be free of ever judging anyone or anything, to this day it is one of my most important spiritual disciplines, and I offer the idea to you for thought as you explore what it means to live well.